OUP: Causton: Seven States of Rain - Oxford University Press

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Violin

Winner of the British Composer Award 2005 in the Solo/Duo category (British Academy of Composers and Songwriters)

Richard Causton

Seven States of Rain

978-0-19-355840-3 | Paperback | 12 June 2003

Price: £10.00

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for violin and piano
From the first sporadic drops to showers, monsoons and drenching sheets, the instruments in this piece (the piano prepared with blu-tack) work closely together to effectively capture the mood.

Forces or Category

Violin & piano

Duration

10 minutes

Difficulty

Difficult

Programme Notes

This piece invokes the poetry of rain in its various moods and forms: the teasing interplay of the first, sporadic drops; a rapid but heavy irregular sputtering; the overarching fullness of a shower; a very fine rain; the large, warm droplets of a tropical monsoon; its occasional violence; and the grey, eternal, drenching sheets of rain of an afternoon somewhere in England.
The seven interlinked sections contain two basic types of material: isolated points of sound in sections I and II, and continuous, chordal music in III and IV. In sections V, VI and VII, the two tendencies are combined. Although the roles of the instruments vary from time to time, the piece is conceived as a duet, or a dialogue between equals. To facilitate this, some preparation in the piano brings the sound of the violin and piano closer in timbre. The sections of the piece are as follows:
I: A plucked violin solo, followed by a passage of quick-fire interplay between the violin and piano - II: a very short, quiet section of isolated droplets - III: an expansive melody for the violin (now bowed) over crashing piano chords - IV: a quiet chorale in which the violin and piano continually swap parts - V: a multilayered section involving the return of ideas from section II, a chordal idea of increasing intensity in the middle range of the piano and a gradual build-up of bass resonance - VI: this tension is dispelled in a scintillating shower which gradually calms, giving way to - VII: a chorale for solo piano, associated with the endless, grey rain of an afternoon.
Seven States of Rain is dedicated to Darragh Morgan and Mary Dullea on the occasion of their first wedding anniversary.
© 2003 Richard Causton
Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press

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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.