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PIANO Please click to enlarge and to view excerpts |
WENDY HISCOCKS
COMPOSER
WENDY HISCOCKS PIANIST SHORT BIOGRAPHY CREATIVITY & MUSIC EVENTS PAGE SCORE CATALOGUE: Piano Duet Song Chamber Choral Orchestral Recordings |
| TOCCATA (1983)
Duration: 2½ minutes
Programme notes Toccata was written in 1983 while the composer
was a student at Sydney University, in response to a workshop commission
for the Sydney Schumann Society. This work was influenced by two
particular factors: the composer’s introduction to Indian raga, and encouragement
from the composer Peggy Glanville-Hicks to concentrate on melody and rhythm. |
Toccata |
| RAINFOREST TOCCATA (1987)
Duration: 3½ minutes
Programme notes Rainforest Toccata was composed in 1987 and
reflects two sources of inspiration. One is the echoing acoustic
and atmosphere of the ‘Devil’s Coachhouse’ near the entrance to the Jenolan
Caves in New South Wales, at the start of that lovely walk through the
bush where one can watch rock wallabies at dusk. The other general
inspiration is the sounds and scents of Australian rainforests; the piece’s
central dancing toccata section was probably most marked by a magical afternoon
listening to a forest of bellbirds on the escarpments of the NSW Central
Coast. |
Rainforest Toccata |
| THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN (1990-5)
Duration: 12 minutes
Prelude; Nocturne; Caprice; Finale (recomposed
2003)
Programme notes This four-movement concert or ballet suite for solo piano, completed in 1995, was inspired by a magical chapter from Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. In a scene far removed from the antics of Mr Toad, two of the animal characters journey through a summer night to the breaking of dawn, drawn on irresistibly by a mysterious glad piping to a vision of Pan, protector of all wild creatures. Prelude evokes twilight, punctuated by two small scherzo episodes for fluttering moths and wheeling bats; Nocturne paints the river as the moon gradually rises and sails overhead; Caprice brings first light, hints of a morning breeze, and the mysterious piping. The Finale blends the whispers of the wind in the reeds and Pan’s secret song to all creatures. |
Piper At The Gates of Dawn |
| TARANTELLA (2001)
Duration: 3 minutes
Programme notes This piece was written at the request of the talented
young pianist Cordelia Williams. Brilliant and virtuosic, it take
as its source of inspiration the solar wind. At times the wind delights
in its dance through the cosmic dust and at other times it is powerful
and dynamic. Occasionally you can hear deep bass notes like drums—a
reminder of the distant heartbeat of the sun where the solar wind originates.
Only at the climax near the end of the piece, does the solar wind revisit
its origins before being propelled into the universe again amidst the swirling
star dust.
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Tarantella |
| LIGHT: SIX EASY PIANO PIECES (1996)
Duration: 4 minutes
The Earth; The Seed; The Light; River of Gold;
The
Bird; The Moon and the Moth; The Earth, the Sun and the Stars;
The
Apple Tree. (French edition available from Editions Combre, Paris;
this edition sold over 1500 copies in its first two years of publication.)
Programme notes This collection was composed in 1995, in response
to a request from piano teacher Eleanor Drover for a set of children’s
piano pieces which are poetic and sensitive in character. Each of
the six pieces tells a story about some aspect of Light and how it affects
our world. Eleanor and I started from the shared feeling that sensitivity
and awareness developed in the young are a means by which violence can
end. |
Light: Six Easy Piano Pieces |
| TWO PIECES FOR CORDELIA (1996-7)
Duration: 3½ minutes
Cordelia for whom the Angels Dance; The Blue Star
These two pieces were commissioned by Cordelia Williams, who premi?red
the first of them at her eighth birthday piano recital on 7 July 1996.
I was asked if I could reassure Cordelia by reconciling through music the
tragic story of Shakespeare’s Cordelia. In this respect, Cordelia
for whom the Angels Dance is not a tragic or sad piece: it is a dance
for Shakespeare’s pure-hearted Cordelia, and for the young artist who commissioned
the piece. Underneath some decorative passages in small notes, this
piece is melodic, not unlike calligraphic curves which must flow and be
connected. |
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| Scenes from an Australian Childhood (2001–7) Duration: 25½ minutes
Garden Orb Web; Wombeyan Caves; Lanterns on Lake Illawarra; Trees and Lightning; Tarantella
Many of the descriptions in literature and music about Australia focus on a flat or drought-ridden landscape but for me, Australia’s flora and fauna and natural weather patterns created an environment that was vibrant and exciting. It is these images and experiences that are expressed in these various musical chapters of a larger collection of piano solos titled Scenes from an Australian Childhood. The five works that constitute Scenes from an Australian Childhood may be performed in a different order or as solos. |
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| Garden Orb Web(2006)
Duration: 5 minutes
Programme notes Spiders are not exactly the most beloved of Australia’s fauna but I do recall the beauty of dew in the morning light hanging from numerous large webs on the side of Australia’s more remote inland roads. The Garden Orb spider built such strong, big webs in the garden at home, so strong, that as a child, you were almost bounced back from them if you ever ran into one. Garden Orb Web takes its structure from the web building process of this spider, a process which is completed by the weaving of the spiral, first in then out, and the final glistening of the dew. Garden Orb Web was premiered by Russian pianist Vladimir Stoupel on May 5, 2006 in the Kleiner Salle of the Berlin Konzerthaus, Germany. |
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| Wombeyan Caves (2006)
Duration: 6 minutes
Programme notes Wombeyan Caves was one of my family’s favourite sites for camping holidays. The highlight of my stay was to be taken on a cave tour that wound along stone pathways and descended steel ladders into dimly lit caverns. Memories of the constant sound of dripping water, the smell of the rocks and areas of the caves that were transformed into grand limestone palaces are reproduced in a pianistic sound-world. Wombeyan Caves was premiered by Russian pianist Vladimir Stoupel on May 5, 2006 in the Kleiner Salle of the Berlin Konzerthaus, Germany. |
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| Lanterns on Lake Illawarra (2007)
Duration: 6½ minutes
Programme notes I have many memories of being woken in the middle of a summer night to go prawning on Lake Illawarra. The prawns would ‘run’ best when the tide went out and the moon was full. Then we would hang our gas lanterns from the boat and wait with our nets. Lanterns on Lake Illawarra takes the form of a musical fable in which the moon and the lantern are the main characters and are given musical themes. In short, the lantern is the false lover who lures the prawn towards the net and this depiction is mingled with themes for the water, a pervading rumba-rhythm, and a myriad of stars above the lake before the final coda. Lanterns on Lake Illawarra was commissioned and premiered by American pianist Scott McCarrey on November 15, 2007 in the McKay auditorium, Brigham Young University, Hawaii. |
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| Trees & Lightning (2007)
Duration: 5 minutes
Trees & Lightning begins with an approaching storm over a national park, the heavy and intense stillness of the air contained by the suppressed dynamics of the opening bars against which there are bursts of lightning and brooding thunder. This eases forward into the central waltz where the artistic perspective alters to below the tree-line. Here one is looking up at the trees (gums, eucalyptus etc.) whose white limbs are transformed in the lightning to reveal them moving in a fantastic dance. Trees & Lightning was commissioned and premiered by American pianist Scott McCarrey on November 15, 2007 in the McKay auditorium, Brigham Young University, Hawaii. |
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| Tarantella (2001)
Duration: 3 minutes
See earlier entry. |
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