{"id":216,"date":"2006-12-06T00:13:23","date_gmt":"2006-12-06T00:13:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2006\/12\/06\/program-note-tommy-fowler-rappezzatura-barocco\/"},"modified":"2006-12-06T00:13:23","modified_gmt":"2006-12-06T00:13:23","slug":"program-note-tommy-fowler-rappezzatura-barocco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2006\/12\/06\/program-note-tommy-fowler-rappezzatura-barocco\/","title":{"rendered":"Program Note- Tommy Fowler &#8220;Rappezzatura Barocco&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I really should have posted the notes to Tommy\u2019s new work <em>before<\/em> the premiere last week, but better late than never. Hopefully their appearance here helps him snag some more performances with other orchestras<br \/>\n<span \/>KW<br \/>\n<font face=\"Helvetica\">\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><font face=\"Helvetica\">Rappezzatura Barocco\u00a0 (c10m)<br \/>\n<\/font><font face=\"Helvetica\">Tommy Fowler (b1948)<br \/>\n<\/font><font face=\"Helvetica\">\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font face=\"Helvetica\">Commissioned by the Kelvin Ensemble to mark its 15th anniversary.\u00a0<br \/>\n<\/font><font face=\"Helvetica\">Dedicated to Paul Middleton, founder member and conductor of the Kelvin Ensemble.<br \/>\n<\/font><font face=\"Helvetica\">\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font face=\"Helvetica\">The dedication to Paul marks the Kelvin Ensemble concert in February 1992 when he conducted a piece by the then first year B.Mus. mature student Tommy Fowler!<br \/>\n<\/font><font face=\"Helvetica\">\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font face=\"Helvetica\">The last orchestral piece of mine performed at Glasgow University was a bassoon concerto (1996) which I described at the time as my revenge on Corelli after seemingly interminable harmony exercises.\u00a0 It is fitting that for this piece I return to the same composer for inspiration.\u00a0 Arcangelo Corelli\u2019s trio sonatas fascinated me when I met them for the first time at GU.\u00a0 His style is adventurous yet pristine and my study score of the Joachim edition of the twelve sonatas Opus 1-4 is well thumbed.\u00a0 This piece takes materials from the F major sonatas in Opus 1 and 2 and after displaying and processing them, stitches them together to form a patchwork quilt.\u00a0 The orchestration is standard apart from the introduction of a harpsichord into the texture.\u00a0 The music opens quietly and slowly \u201cwith graceful majesty\u201d featuring the lower strings and solo winds.\u00a0 As the harpsichord becomes more busy and the volume builds the full strings emerge ebbing and flowing \u201cwith some intensity\u201d.\u00a0 The winds and the harpsichord begin to break into the rhythm with a series of quintuplet phrases before the tempo suddenly doubles.\u00a0 This section follows a strict pattern of simultaneous increasing and decreasing odd and even numbered rhythmic cells (9-2-7-4-5-6-3-8) marked by sharp chords on the brass and harpsichord.\u00a0 Over that layer there are selected parts of the musical materials as well as some contrapuntal rhythmic gestures the whole being marked to be played \u201cwith restrained excitement\u201d.\u00a0 After some suggestions of a triplet rhythm, the horns begin a gigue-like section but the strings decide to straighten out this rhythm and eventually this leads to a fast, gradual build up towards the end.\u00a0 Ten bars at a slow tempo marked \u201cSplendid\u201d precedes a brief headlong rush \u201cwith undue haste\u201d to an abrupt ending.<br \/>\n<\/font><font face=\"Helvetica\">\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font face=\"Helvetica\">TF<br \/>\n<\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><font face=\"Helvetica\">\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n<p>Tommy Fowler holds a Ph.D. in composition from Glasgow University, is regularly commissioned and performed and his work covers, orchestral, choral, ensemble and solo instruments as well as music for the theatre. His pieces have been performed by the RSNO, the SCO, the BBC SSO, NYCoS, Ensemble Bash, Paragon Ensemble, John Kitchen, Cappella Nova and many others.\u00a0 Originally from Fraserburgh, he was a journalist for 20 years before taking a career change into music and moving to Glasgow.\u00a0 Among a variety of projects\u00a0 since then, he has written music for silent film, collaborated with Edinburgh-based Palestinian poet Ghazzi Hussain and written a piece for four percussionists with no instruments!\u00a0 He is soon to embark on a theatre-based project to create a score for bicycles.<\/p>\n<p><span \/><\/p>\n<p>Copyrighted material is reproduced on these pages without profit for infomational purposes only\u00a0and will be reomoved on request<\/p>\n<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2006\/12\/06\/program-note-tommy-fowler-rappezzatura-barocco\/\" send=\"false\" layout=\"box_count\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"true\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I really should have posted the notes to Tommy\u2019s new work before the premiere last week, but better late than never. Hopefully their appearance here helps him snag some more performances with other orchestras KW \u00a0 Rappezzatura Barocco\u00a0 (c10m) Tommy Fowler (b1948) \u00a0 Commissioned by the Kelvin Ensemble to mark its 15th anniversary.\u00a0 Dedicated to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-opion-life-as-a-performing-musician"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}