w16958
| Title | Plumed Serpent |
| Contributors |
Derek Ball (composer) |
| Composition date | 2007 |
| Duration (mins) | 10 |
| Category | chamber duo |
| Instrumentation | Vc Pf |
| Commissioned by | |
| Key signature | |
| First line | |
| First performed | |
| Notes | To Marc Coppey and Finghin Collins |
| Programme Note | The Aztec deities Xolotl and Quetzalcoatl are described in varying and contradictory ways in accounts of ancient Mexican culture, modern knowledge of which is patchy. The im age of a plumed serpent was a common one, but each deity can take numerous different forms, and the two mentioned here contend with numerous others ina crowded pantheon. Xolotl and Quetzalcoatl are often described together and one may be seen as the evil twin of the other, but which way round? There are two thematically linked pieces. Starting with a stylised imitation of the double-glissando call of the resplendent but elusive quetzal bird, sacred to the Aztecs, the first piece uses the Aztec snake and bird images without any conscious intention of rediscovering the lost culture, preferring to approach the subject by way of the collective unconscious rather than academic study! Both players have fiercely difficult music in what I envisage as a sort of brief unaccompanied double concerto. In the middle of the piece the cello quotes from Au temps de Carolan, a recent solo cello piece of mine for Marc Coppey, and shortly after that the piano has a quote from Splitting the Capsule, a piano piece I wrote for Finghin Collins immediately before starting this one. The second piece is much slower and depends for its effect on intensity of expressive interpretation of its long cantabile lines, a responsibility I conidently entrust to the work's two dedicatees. |
This work is associated with the following collection items:
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