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Stone, Water, Stars
Conductor's score and parts on hire
978-0-19-366589-7
06 September 1990
Price: Available on request
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for full orchestra Forces or CategoryFull orchestraDuration23 minutesDifficultyDifficultOrchestration3 fl (II+afl, III+picc&afl), 3 ob (III+ca), 3 cl II&III+bcl), 3 bn (III+cbn), 4 hn, 4 tpt, 3 tbn, tba, timp, 5 perc (mba, glock, w blk, whip, tam, vib, claves, 2 tri, clashcym, xylo, crotales, TD, tbells, 4 sus cym, BD, Chinese blk, vib, SD, 3 tom, 3 bongos), 2 hp, pn (+cel),
strProgramme NotesStone, Water, Stars completes a trilogy of pieces inspired, in different ways, by the city of Venice. Music from the Chamber Concerto (1984) and Venexiana (1985) is quoted here and the three works share a certain amount of basic material.
In this piece Venice becomes an allegory, a metaphor for music itself; as a city built on water it is a uniquely poetic and suggestive exemplar of improbable human achievement, as well as, now, a place of memories and fantasies, a map of the labyrinths of the imagination.
The title is taken from the writings of the arts historian Adrian Stokes. It suggested three kinds of musical organisation stone as constructed
'symphonic' order, water as intuitively arranged fantasy, and stars as pre-ordained musical structures, and more speculatively, three stages of human aspirations, from water to stone to stars. In one respect the piece is about the interdependence of those compositional approaches, just as Stokes finds the magic and meaning of Venice in the conjunction of stone and water.
This interdependence of elements applies also to the form of the piece. The musical architecture is derived from two sets of proportions superimposed. This makes a double form, analogous to Palladio's 'soave armonia' of ratios designed to produce spatial consonance in, for example, the two interpenetrating temple fronts which form the facade of San Giorgio Maggiore. I have used the proportions, borrowed from
renaissance architecture and Leonardo's studies of the human form, to govern some other aspects of the music from large shapes to the smallest rhythmic details.
The double form of the piece is heard as six main sections and, within that structure and cutting across it, marking proportions and striking the hours, a sequence of bell chimes. So time is organised architecturally as a series of proportions, and, fancifully as a compression of two days and nights into the twenty minutes of the piece.
The six main sections are a slow, dark introduction (1) leading to an allegro (2) with brass and percussion to the fore, which builds to the first climax. This immediately collapses to reveal a slow barcarolle-like episode (3) followed by a volatile scherzo (4) with multiple
bells at its central climax. This gives way to a varied and compressed re-working of the allegro (5) followed by a final slow section (6) which reaches the third and main climax of the piece after which there is a gradual dissolution to a quiet ending.
The music is at times labyrinthine, a rapid succession of cross cut or superimposed moments, and at others more directional; at times the sounds of Venice are there, at others we are in an abstract musical city. Frequent glimpses are caught, at different distances, of the two chords which, in alternation, will form the basis of the main climax of the piece. They are finally discovered just as one might, in Venice, discover the Piazza after wandering in the stone maze. And memories intrude, in the nocturnal barcarolle and over
the final climax with its firework display of references, memories of music composed in Venice, from Monteverdi to the present day.
Stone, Water, Stars was commissioned by the B.B.C. and first performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Pritchard, on 10 February 1988 at the Royal Festival Hall, London.
© Anthony Powers 1987
Reproduced with permission of Oxford University Press
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Anthony Powers (b.1953) Born in London in 1953, Anthony Powers studied at Oxford, in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, and at York with David Blake and Bernard Rands. He taught for two years at Dartington College of Arts before being appointed Composer-in-Residence to Southern Arts. Since then he has moved to Herefordshire where he continues to divide his time between composing and teaching, currently at Cardiff University, where he has been Professor of composition since 2004.
Powers's music is characterized by strong architectonic frameworks that support a language of poetic intensity and magical sonorities. His music often takes its inspiration from the tension between different states, be they physical properties, landscapes, seasons or emotions.Anthony Powers at Cardiff University
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"...a modern showpiece, glitteringly bold and various in its command of large forces...I warm to Power's ability to tackle his subject free of touristy cliches, and to the intricate subtlety of his formal pattern...stirring and fascinating." - Max Loppert, Financial Times "...a passionate cry of the heart, with full-blooded orchestral writing containing a multitude of allusions to Venetian music past and present." - Richard Morrison, The Times
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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.
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