Golden Years

Concerto for Violin & Orchestra

2013
27 mins
2(II=picc+aflt).2.2(I,II=bcl).2(II=cbn)-3.2.1.1-perc.(3):
I=mar/tamb/sm guiro/lge drum case;
II=lgeBD/crot/hi-hat/sm Tom-t/3susp,cym/3tpl.bl/2bottles;
III=lge guiro/glspl/t.bells/gtr-
pft(=clsta)-accdn-vln solo-strings

Premiere: 18, 19 October 2013
Perth Concert Hall
Margaret Blades, violin
West Australian Symphony Orchestra
Otto Tausk, conductor

1st movement

2nd movement

3rd movement

Programme Note

Whilst there is nothing new about a composer taking the music of another and absorbing it into their own world, I have often struggled with the idea: At what point are you stealing and at what point are you borrowing? Two earlier works of mine have taken musical artefacts from the past and integrated them into my music. One of those, The Madness and Death of King Ludwig, took a couple of elements from Richard Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungs. Here, his music exerts itself and causes cracks in my own before making its way fully to the surface in a more or less literal rendition. In a more recent orchestral piece, Two Memorials, the music of Anton Webern and John Lennon live under the same roof. In this case however, there was no literal absorption of either composer – only stylised references. Golden Years, a concerto for violin and orchestra, follows this tradition (for the most part). And rather than there be only one or two references, the work is littered with music that I had listened to when I was younger. So the work is a kind of giant melting pot of musical ingredients. With one exception, all of the musical 'borrowings' are stylised, not literal. That work is Rameau's Gavotte and Six Doubles (or variations). I had spent many an afternoon as a teenager playing what bits I could on my trusty Roland synthesizer on the "harpsichord" setting. In this concerto, it appears near the beginning and again at the end of the second movement, as a strange little baroque-sounding duo for violin and celesta. The first movement is built around a blues scale. The soloist plays a long-spanning melody that seems to be searching for a home. A home it doesn’t find until the end of the movement - a gospel-inspired chord progression that seemed to fit the melody perfectly. The final third movement is a fast, breathless moto perpetuo. Here the extra-musical sources lay firmly in 80's pop. I played in several rock bands during this decade and one of those bands covered Top-40 hits. I have taken some chord progressions and riffs from these band days, sliced and diced them and tossed them into the pot.
Golden Years won the 2014 APRA award for orchestral work of the year.

To borrow or purchase the score from the Australian Music Centre click here

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