Audio Sample
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Performance by Gregory Massingham, Colin Spiers from the CD Sonata |
$POA
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CD
Sonata : music of the Australian composers Eric Gross, Colin Spiers, Ann Carr-Boyd, Robert Allworth.
Library shelf no. CD 164 [Available for loan]
Score
The Day of Death and Dreams : for tenor and piano / music: Colin Spiers ; text: Patrick White.
Library shelf no. 783.8754/SPI 1 [Available for loan]
Work Overview
This work (the composer's favourite) was written for the Brisbane tenor Gregory Massingham to whom it is dedicated. It exploits this fine singer's wide and flexible expressive range, which manifested itself in a career notable for mastery of an eclectic repertoire embracing lieder, English art song and opera.
The text is drawn from the final chapter of Patrick White's 1955 masterpiece "The Tree of Man", which is notable for the striking manner in which the author is able to provide powerful insights into his characters lives using seemingly plain, yet very subtle and poetic language. The final chapter is very striking, with its use of the image of the harsh Australian bush in general and of trees in particular as metaphors for death, life and creativity.
The music attempts to match these by combining harsh and dramatic chordal textures and declaimed recitative with more delicate lyrical and ecstatic writing in the genre of a solo cantata characterised by many shifting yet interlinked sections.
Work Details
Year: 1989
Instrumentation: Tenor, piano.
Duration: 19 min.
Difficulty: Advanced — requires great flexibility of expression from both performers.
Dedication note: Dedicated to Gregory Massingham
First performance: by Gregory Massingham, Colin Spiers — 1989. Queensland Conservatorium, Brisbane
Subjects
- In the form/style of: Neo-Romanticism
Performances of this work
1989: Queensland Conservatorium, Brisbane. Featuring Gregory Massingham, Colin Spiers.
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