Causton: Notturno
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- Composer: Richard Causton (1971-)
- Format: Full Score
- Instrumentation: Chamber Ensemble
- Work: Notturno (1998)
- ISBN:
- Size: 9.5 x 13 inches
- Pages: 31
Description
The three movements of this piece each explore different aspects of night-time, both real and imaginary.
In the first movement, a smooth central section is framed by rhetorical instrumental dialogues; this music is associated with a poem by Salvatore Quasimodo which describes an old tree, a refuge to birds of the night, which "resounds with a rapid beating of wings", and "from on high… listens intently to the abyss". The central panel of the movement is formed by a sort of distant, blurred polyphony, lit up at intervals by bright chorale-like passages.
The second movement is an interlude in cyclical form. As it rotates, the music follows through a trajectory arising from the opening viola solo.
The third movement retreads the same harmonic ground as the first, but this time the music has been pushed towards extremes. The very slow central chorale, associated with the breathless calm of an uninhabited night-time landscape, is juxtaposed with fast, rough music like something of the brutality which can follow when man inhabits such spaces.
© Richard Causton
Causton: Notturno
