w16257
| Title | At Time's End |
| Contributors |
Derek Ball (composer) |
| Composition date | 2005 |
| Duration (mins) | 7 |
| Category | chamber mixed quartet |
| Instrumentation | Vn Cl Vc Pf |
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| Key signature | |
| First line | |
| First performed | |
| Notes | |
| Programme Note | I wrote this piece for the Hebrides Ensemble after hearing them in a memorable performance of Messiaen's "Quatuor pour la fin du temps". Unlike Messiaen who took an entirely spiritual approach to the subject of time, I have been literal about it. In the modern age informed by the new cosmology we can take a less absolute view of time itself, regarding it as a property of matter rather than a ground of existence. We can think of space and time as variable. Although the known higher dimensions are all spatial, a wilder theroetician can even imagine other dimensions from the standpoint of which time would not be progressive from past to future but perceptible in its entirety, all of a piece. My music aims for just such a perception, or the illusion of it. Material initially presented in the form of a series of decelerations is transfromed by suspending it in a sort of non-linear matrix from which some characteristics of time - movement and iteration- have been expunged! |
This work is associated with the following collection items:
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