Richard Meale – Coruscations

When I first heard this, I thought I would dislike it. Hate it. And whilst I wasn’t 100% correct, I didn’t really enjoy it either. One main reason is this: lack of key signature, lack of time signature. Lack of apparent organisation. For nine minutes. Call me a traditionalist, but I like my signatures. However I did not hate it. In fact there are many qualities of the work I enjoyed. Even its randomness had its appeal.

The quiet passages were the ones I enjoyed the most. These passages tended to be more chordal and, dare I say it, melodic (hence probably why I preferred them). The emotion behind the playing could definitely be felt in these sections. There also seems to be a constant tension throughout the work. Meale has kept his audience guessing, no one is ever really sure when the next note will be played, or what it will be. How the guy in the youtube clip learnt it off by heart I will never know.

The ending is extremely abrupt. Indeed, I didn’t noticed it had ended. I was sitting here waiting for the next random note/chord to be played, and nothing happened! I suppose what gives it away at the end is the extremely low pitch of the last note.

Anyhoo…. Not usually the type of work I would listen to/play, but I believe I got plenty out of it, including respect for Edward Neeman.

Emma

Richard Meale – Coruscations for solo piano

This is one of the most interesting compositions I have come across from Australian composer Richard Meale.

According to the sticky note attached to the score, coruscate means to give forth flashes of light, sparkle, glitter; to exhibit sparkling virtuosity. This definition certainly fits many of the unusual elements that comprise this composition.

The majority of the piece is made up of rapidly played figurations; short passages which are intended to be played ‘fast to as fast as possible’. At the end of each passage the performer is required to either: make an appropriate pause before going on; make an appropriate hesitation before going on; or make no hesitation at all and go on the next passage immediately. Some figurations are to be played uguale (equal; in a similar manner), and these passages will often contain internal rhythmic groupings.

One aspect which makes this composition unique is that is has no time signature or key signature. The rapid passages are made up of seemingly random notes, often encompassing wide leaps over the piano. At no stage does there appear to be a distinct melodic voice. Instead, the piece, as the above definition suggests, is made up of groups of sparkling notes; comparable to the idea of giving forth flashes of light.

Interspersed amongst the figurations are moderato passages which are more chord-based (still no time or key signatures though) and often include a decrease in dynamic, sometimes down to pppp. These slightly languid passages provide an effective contrast to the rapidly-played figurations by creating a more timid, mysterious mood.

Many elements of the piece are to be interpreted by the pianist. These include most of the dynamics, tempo, the use of pedal, and the way the performer plays the figurations (they do not have to be perfectly even). Apparently this composition is intended to reflect the distinct sounds of the Australian environment, such as the heat and vibrant bird calls. When you listen hard you can hear some of these sounds embedded into the music.

The only way I could listen to this composition was on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTr8rqk9DBA. The pianist, Edward Neeman, has somehow managed to memorise the piece. What an effort.

- Tully

Richard Meale- Incredible Floridas

Movement 4- Interlude is one of the most beautiful pieces I’ve listened to in a long time.

Now that I’ve started with a bias- what interested me overall was the smaller level structure of this piece that kept the 30mins unified, identifiable as part of the whole but remains refreshing to listen to as the piece’s structure rejuvenates our association with the material. I’ll explain that:

Trend in smaller level structure:

• constantly moving between silence and gesture (I say gesture because Meale isn’t just working with sound, but working more in Thomas Reiner’s sound object form of gesture)
• sound objects- pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle
• playing with silence and gesture: it isn’t ever completely silent- the sustain of the held notes (be it gong or a flute) means there is always a drone- but this forms part of Meale’s sound object bank that he can select from to move from complicated sound masses to a static, almost silent break and rest from the action.

How do these trends help in the composition process?

• Meale has a variety of material available to him, so he can sculpt a piece according to action and no-action or chaos to order or any other complements he may choose, tonailty to atonal etc.

But how does Meale put these objects together and make sense of them in a musical composition?

• Piece functions a lot by call and response- in an action sense- one player will trigger a sound setting up a chain reaction of similar unfolding events- so one thing will trigger something else- but the use of silence means that these responses are different and timbrally different
• although in a sense this structure sets up anticipation of a sound response after a particular trigger- the nature of the jigsaw structure means that we can’t have expectations of what comes next because the material is so variable- Meale does set up the anticipation well as the anticipation keeps us interested.

Overtime the cues (triggering of events) get faster- so being flexible with this gives the piece progression and movement.

Important to note: the cuing is not always for one instrument to start- we do get unison, but again, with different gestures- specifically pairing up different length sound objects- we are constantly able to idenitify the cuing of more and more sound objects.

The success in this piece is the ability by cueing actions to glue seemingly isolated and disparate parts together and also the ability to glue completely different textures/sections together via the repetition of recognisable material (ie. gestures).

Pru.