w16368
| Title | Obwien |
| Contributors |
Derek Ball (composer) |
| Composition date | 2006 |
| Duration (mins) | 8 |
| Category | keyboard solo |
| Instrumentation | Pf |
| Commissioned by | |
| Key signature | |
| First line | |
| First performed | |
| Notes | To Denis O'Sullivan |
| Programme Note | In approaching the idea of writing a piano piece for my old friend Denis O'sullivan, who lives in Vienna, I shook out of my brain a few hackneyed, preconceived, lazy clichés about that city and joined them together. The result was that Johann Strauss the Younger's famous set of Beautiful Blue Danube waltzes was subjected to reaction formation (d'après Sigmund Freud) through the prism of Schoenberg's serial technique. In other words, I took the sum of all notes and rhythms in the world since notes and rhythms were invented and abstracted from them the notes and rhythms of the Blue Danube, leaving something that could be described as the shadow, the negative image, the hollow mould, the empty shell or doppelgänger of the waltz, perhaps best thought of as the obverse* of a waltz, obtended with obsessional obstinacy by an obscure obloquist, for purposes of obfuscation, in short, a Obwaltz. I have not included the introduction and coda in the process of making the piece, nor have I included any of the internal repeats within individual waltzes. Of course where Strauss repeats a waltz I have repeated it also. Part of the "fun" (there must be a better word) for someone listening to the piece is trying to guess which Blue Danube waltz is being "not played", nay positively shunned, at any particular time. For the performer, I've helpfully provided an appendix with theh top line of "missing" waltzes added in a separate stave. Of course this line is af academic interest only, and not for performance purposes. I can only imagine with utter orror and disbelief the bizarre recklessness of a foolish violinist or clarinettist "filling in" the missing waltz tunes and thus risking a catastrophic matter anti-matter annihilation as well as taking away most of the whole point of the piece. |
This work is associated with the following collection items:
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