Festival Music

Wave Movements

The Hub

Four Stars

Miranda Heggie

For centuries, the sea has been a source of fascination to musicians, artists and writers, and despite huge advances in human knowledge, we’ve still only explored less than five per cent of the earth’s oceans. No wonder then that the mysteries of the sea still are still an inspiration to composers today. In what was the Scottish Premiere of a new work by composers Bryce Dessner and Richard Reed Parry, the string players of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Gerry Cornelius, gave a hypnotic and moving rendition of Wave Movements.

Written directly to rhythms taken from waves and tides, the piece is set to a film made by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto, based on his iconic Seascape images from the 1980s. Although beautiful and compelling, the still calm visuals don’t always match the music, especially in the more tumultuous sections of the piece.

Showcasing each composer’s individual work, the second half opened with Richard Reed Parry’s Interruptions I – VII (Heart and Breath Nonet). Scored for a small ensemble, each performer wears a stethoscope over their chest to allow them to hear their own heartbeats. With the music based on the players’ breathing patterns, no two performances of this work will ever be quite the same.

Bryce Dessner’s Murder Ballades is a work comprised of seven short movements based on US folksongs written about brutal killings. Despite the gruesome premise, the work is surprisingly upbeat as Dessner reworks these traditional melodies in a playful and innovative way. The first movement in the set, Omie Wise, has a strong, driven rhythm, and the final section, Tears for Sister Polly, makes clever use of subtle harmonic shifts.

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