Instrumentation:
vln, vla, vc
Approximate duration:
7 minutes
Programme notes (© David Curington, 2011):
This piece consists of 91 short variations, each presenting truncations of four series having
similar spacing to the harmonic series (two are harmonic series mapped onto an equally tempered scale).
Some variations are in turn variations of others, some blend into their chronological neighbours
and others not, and they are arranged in a way such that the piece is roughly in ternary form.
Expansion of tessitura has a prominent role in the global trajectory: the piece begins within
a narrow range of pitches (using the middle portions of each series) which is expanded downwards
(revealing the bottom portions), then upwards and then later upwards still using "quint" doubling.
Variations was written as a submission for the 2011 University of Aberdeen Music Prize.
Sample music:
Click here for a few pages of the score as a pdf file.