p h y v a s y d e

Instrumentation:             2.2.2.2/2.2/Perc(2)/Str  

Duration:                       16’       

Performance details:      21.03.2003, St. James Church, Piccadilly, Wallace Ensemble, cond; Benjamin Wolf.

10.05.2003, Great Hall, Leeds University. Leeds University Chamber Orchestra, cond; Bill Laurence.

Recording details:          as first performance

Click here to hear an excerpt             Click hear to see sketches

For details of hiring the sheet music, please contact David

The starting point for this piece was to juxtapose two smaller chamber ensembles (String and Wind Quintets) against the wider fabric of a chamber orchestra, and explore how they interact with each other in their fight for being the ‘prime’ ensemble in the orchestra.  This gave rise to the title of the work, literally a phonetic mutation of ‘five-a-side’.

The work has five broad sections – each marked Introduction, Procession, Confrontation, Aspiration and Despiration accordingly.

The Introduction is organically built around the opening motif from the 2^nd Bassoon (bar 2), and the reply from the Cellos and Basses (bar 20).  The important characteristics of the opening Bassoon 2 motif, which are carried through the music, are the falling fourth and the double dotted rhythm.  The qualities held from the Cello reply are the chant-like voice leading and the Phrygian atmosphere.  The quintuplet rhythm from bar 1 is also felt throughout the Introduction.  After an opening flourish which suggests C as a tonal centre, the music relents and rests on B (bar 16), on which it basically stays for the rest of the Introduction section.  Polytonal levels build around B – the timpani try to act as a dominant, whilst the trumpet fanfares add tension by suggesting tonal centres of A and B flat.  Towards the end of the Introduction, more levels are introduced throughout the orchestra, and the rhythm becomes more insistent.  

The Procession section is basically a military march, which results from the war-like calls in the Introduction.  It settles on a tonal centre of C sharp by bar 60, whilst motifically, the same material is used as for the introduction.  It is in the Procession section that the solo quintets first exchange dialogue with each other – at first from bar 70, and then more explicitly from bar 107.  The result of this argument is a shift in tonal centre to C sharp by the end of the section.

The third section is the Confrontation.  G is established as the tonal centre for the entire section from the beginning, and from bar 157, it is ever present in the texture as part of the ostinato first stated there.  After some rhythmic variation, the ostinato settles into a ritualistic and primitive state with a regular metre (bar 178), and sets up the ‘confrontation’. Here the Quintets affirm their personally by stating standard repertoire.  At bar 194, the String Quintet quote the opening bars from Schubert’s String Quintet, and at bar 200 the Wind Quintet quote part of the fourth movement from Ligeti’s Bagatelles for Wind Quintet. The Quintets then mock each others music.  The 1^st Trumpet exposes the ‘main theme’ of the Confrontation section, which is developed along with the ostinato up to the end of the section.

The result of the Confrontation is the Aspiration section.  In the midst of the conflict, this section is a window gazing at victory and peace.  The entire section uses alternating pentatonic chords based around a tonal centre of D, of which a bass line (bar 258) and melody (bar 274) are weaved out of.  The tranquility is endangered when the String Quintet build up pentatonic chords around a tonal centre of C sharp, and so ushering the end of the section.

After a restatement and development of the main theme from the confrontation section (bar 312), the music lands on the Despiration [not Desperation] section.  E is the tonal centre for this final section, with G acting as a dominant.  Whereas the 4^th has been the prominent interval throughout the piece, this collapses to a minor 3^rd in the Despiration section.  The contour of the cry made by the solo Cello in bar 396 is developed through the section, and then dissolved away at the end.  

Phyvasde was awarded 1^st prize in the Wallace Ensemble Composition Competition and 1^st prize in the Leeds University Composition Competition in 2003.