Music Finland Core

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The unexpected request for this piece came while I was living a long-held dream of spending a spring in Paris. Being in the city of so many of my artistic heroes, I thought the music should in some way reflect their continuing presence in my life. Images and experiences abounded – the graves of Debussy and Ravel, Messiaen’s church, the paintings of Monet, Renoir, Morisot and Van Gogh, but the one image that kept haunting me was that of gardens. The great urban gardens of Paris were, of course, striking and memorable. But the one that occupied my imagination even before seeing it, seeming central the fin-de-siècle aesthetic I find so captivating, was the country garden built by Monet at his house in Giverny, which ceaselessly and symbiotically fed his creative mind for the last decades of his life, and whose design and life cycles led him on some of the most profound explorations of color, form and perspective in Western art, a dissolution of landscape into pure abstraction. The traditional – not to say hackneyed – pastoral character of the oboe seemed well suited to my penchant for nature-themed music. The resulting piece is a kind of garden of the mind, through which the oboe charts its wayward, introspective course. Like the garden itself, Giverny is divided into two roughly equal parts, visitable in either order, with neither accorded any special structural emphasis or dramatic weight. “The upper garden” is whimsical and free, flitting from one idea to the next, reflecting the riot of color and proliferating sightlines of Monet’s flowerbeds, the multitude of ideas in the piano part bound together by the oboe’s wandering lyrical line. “The water garden” offers a still tableau in which the sound is more monochromatic, the meditative green-on-green world of Monet’s lily pond shot through only occasionally by a streak of contrasting color or sudden motion. The diffuse visual boundaries there between water, land and sky are reflected musically in the blurring of the usual melody-accompaniment roles of the two instruments, and in the way the oboe’s tone often distorts into multiphonics. Many musical ghosts hover throughout the piece, and I welcomed their presence, intruding as I was on their territory.Matthew Whittall

Year of composing

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Abbreviation	Instrument
Woodwind
acl	alto clarinet
afl	alto flute
arec	alto recorder
asax	alto saxophone
barsax	baritone saxophone
barhn	baritone horn
bcl	bass clarinet
bfl	bass flute
bob	bass oboe
bsax	bass saxophone
bsn	bassoon
cbsn	contrabassoon
cl	clarinet
ehn	English horn
fl	flute
hn	French horn
ob	oboe
pic	piccolo
rec	recorder
sax	saxophone
srec	soprano recorder
ssax	soprano saxophone
trec	tenor recorder
tsax	tenor saxophone
Brass
ahn	alto horn
atrb	altotrombone
barhn	baritone horn
btrb	bass trombone
cornet	cornet
euph	euphonium
fhn	flugelhorn
hn	French horn
tba	tuuba
thn	tenor horn
trb	trombone
trp	trumpet
Percussion
dr	drums
glock	glockenspiel
mar	marimba
perc	percussion
timp	timpani
vibr	vibraphone
xyl	xylophone
Strings
db	double bass
gamba	viola da gamba
str	strings
vla	viola
vlc	cello
vln	violin
Other
acc	accordion
cel	celesta
cemb	harpsichord
chords	chords
elbas	electric bass
elg	electric guitar
elorg	electric organ
elpno	electric piano
guit	guitar
harm	harmonium
hca	harmonica
hp	harp
instr	instrument
kantele	kantele
keyb	keyboard
live electr	live electronics
mand	mandolin
mel	melody
org	organ
pno	piano
synth	synthesizer
tape	tape
Vocal
alto	alto
baryt	baritone
basso	bass voice
ch	choir
chc	childrens choir
chf	female choir
chm	male choir
chx	mixed choir
cten	countertenor
mezzo	mezzo-soprano
sopr	soprano
speaker	speaker
ten	tenor
voc	vocal

Symphony orchestra
2222 4331 11 1, str = 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 French horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, one other percussionist, harp and strings
Wind band
2252 3 423 21212 3 = 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 5 clarinets, 2 bassoons - 3 saxophones - 4 French horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones - 2 cornets, alto horn, 2 tenor horns, baritone horn, 2 tubas - 3 percussionists
Big band
221 4 4, pno, guit, db, dr = 2 alto saxophones, 2 tenor saxophones, baritone saxophone, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, piano, guitar, double bass, drums
Additional codes
+	fl+pic = flutist doubles on piccolo
/	pno/org = can be played on either piano or organ
lib	ad libitum
obl	obligato
str	str: 65432 = specified number of string players
str min	str min: 65432 = at least 65432
str max	str max: 65432 = not more than 65432
solo	vln solo = violin is the solo instrument in a work not obviously for solo violin