w19663
| Title | Warwick's Pot in the Making |
| Contributors |
Jane Serter (composer) |
| Composition date | 2013 |
| Duration (mins) | 0 |
| Category | quartet string |
| Instrumentation | 2 Vn Va Vc |
| Commissioned by | |
| Key signature | |
| First line | |
| First performed | |
| Notes | |
| Programme Note | My friend Warwick is a writer and a potter. At one of our writers' group meetings, he read a prose-poem about the pot he is currently in the process of making. It has two sides to it. One side is smooth, whole and conventional. The other is fragmented, rubbled and ruined. Warwick drew up a list of words to describe the two sides. However, the words were not completely opposites of each other. The artistic problem was how to fit the sides together - or should one even try? My piece begins with music of only three notes that represents the beginning of something - perhaps the first feel of the clay in the hand and the optimism about the project. The clay is placed on the potter's wheel. Gradually, more notes are added as the object grows in size and complexity. [The three opening notes appear constantly throughout the piece, but only as the LAST three notes of the melody]. The 'whole' side of the pot is taking shape. This music then stops. The 'fragmented' side is then represented. This is effected by the use of many rests, contrasts is register, a complex rhythm and pizzicato. The piece carries on juxtaposing the 'whole' and the 'fragmented' sides. Towards the end, an attempt is made to fit the two sides together, by having the upper instruments playing the 'whole' music, and the lower playing the 'fragmented' music. The 'happy' opening three note music has been lost, except right at the end where there is an echo of it in the 'cello part. -Jane Serter, July 2013 |
This work is associated with the following collection items:
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