In Focus 5 by Various Artists

The composition Split for alto saxophone was composed in 2006 and utilizes proportional notation, chance operations and theatrical elements, all features rather typical of the composer’s approach to music-making. Despite these contemporary elements, intermittently there is a genuine lyricism of a highly personal nature. It was premiered in 2008 at The MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, NH, the U.S.A. during the composer’s third residency fellowship there. In 2020, it won Third Prize in the solo instrumental category during the Franz Schubert Conservatory World Cup in Composition in Vienna, Austria.

In 2017, the score was published by Editions Babel Scores in Paris, France. The performer on this recording is Griffin Campbell, a professor of saxophone a Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge.

Pomeranian rhapsody is a work for oboe d’amore and harpsichord, composed by Dr Jan Emanuel Abras in 2017, which is structured in several contrasting and dreamlike sections that sound inspired and improvised. Some of its raw melodic and rhythmic material comes from Baroque dances (like the minuet and the sarabande), traditional Polish songs (like Uśnijże mi, uśnij) and classical and traditional music that makes use of hemiola (sesquialtera). Its harmony contains whole tone, pentatonic and major scales, which are combined in a framework based on the tradition of Viennese serialism. This work was commissioned by Il Vento Ensemble (Kraków, Poland) and is dedicated to harpsichordist Anna Huszczo, a native of Gdynia, Pomerania. Hence the title of this work, which also refers to Ania (a hypocoristic form of the name Anna) in a double play of words. Pomeranian rhapsody was premiered in Kraków by Il Vento Ensemble (Katarzyna Pilipiuk, oboe d’amore; Anna Huszczo, harpsichord), on 14 October 2017, at the Erazm Ciołek Palace. This first performance took place during an event entitled “Between Bach and Abras” (Między Bachem a Abrasem), organized by the Pianoforte Foundation, Kraków.

Sun of Orient Crimson with Excess of Light (2020)

This piece for piano and electronics is one of a series of works inspired by the writings of the physicist and explorer John Tyndall (1820-93). Although remembered as a scientist, Tyndall was also a poet, inspired by his avid reading of Shelley, Keats, Byron, Wordsworth, Cowper, Campbell, Burns and, especially, Tennyson, Emerson and Goethe. His own forays into poetry writing started early in his career.

The particular inspiration for this piece is a passage from Tyndall’s poem A Morning on Alp Lusgen, from the final section of his 1882 collection of essays and memoirs, New Fragments, evoking his sense of wonder at the majesty of the landscape; images of sheer, steep declines, the hot sun and lush vegetation.

The sun has cleared the peaks and quenched the flush

Of orient crimson with excess of light.

The tall grass quivers in the rhythmic air

Without a sound; yet each particular blade

Trembles in song, had we but ears to hear.

The hot rays smite us, but a quickening breeze

Keeps languor far away. Unslumbering,

The soul enlarged takes in the mighty scene.

The plummet from this height must sink afar

To reach yon rounded mounds which seem so small.

Musically, this suggested the idea of combining the conventionally played live piano against a range of sampled and treated “extended” piano sounds on tape, especially timbres obtained from inside the piano: plucked and muted strings, harmonics, bowed sounds…

The piece was written for Isabelle O’Connell, who has made a speciality of works for electronics and piano, and who premiered it in March 2020, at the Finding A Voice Festival, in Clonmel.

Canzone Angelica was composed in 2009, during the composer's second visit to the beautiful island of Mindoro in the Philippines. The work is dedicated to the nine-year-old daughter of the composer's friend, Angelica, and inspired by her light and happy behaviours.

Printemps is one of the composer's early compositions, dated back to 1984. The work was revised multiple times and its definitive version was finalised in 2005, and premiered in Los Angeles, during the composer's stay at the Calstate University. The work was originally titled "Vårsang," Norwegian translation for 'Springtime,' and in its final form, was retitled "Printemps."