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12 Variations
After Nina
Attack
Barren Grounds
Beach Burial
Black River
Calling Music
Chamber Suite
The Children's...
Chorale, Demon..
Christmas Song
Cloud Burning
Collide
Dead Songs
Devil's Music, The
Distant Shore, A
Diver's Lament
Duo Variations
Ekstasis
Endling
Etudes Espace
Falling Man
From Fire Co..
Ghosts of Reason
Going Into Sh ..
I Am Black
In Tempore Stellae
Journey to Horse..
Lines Drawn Fr..
little tree
Magnificat
The meaning of...
"Mephisto"
Night Flight
Once upon a time
Piano Sonata
Quicksilver Ser ..
Respiro/Simple ..
Sea Call
Sea-Change
Septet No.2
Shadow's Dance
Silk Canons
Silken Weave
Sleepers Wake
Sonata Sopra..
Sonatina
Song of Songs
Southern Ocean
Stick Dance II
Stick Dance III
Stille Sprache
To the evening...
Three Songs for...
Tonic Continent
Wiegenlied
Wild flower
Willow Bend
Winter Ground
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Cloud Burning (1986)
Cloud Burning is a highly charged evocation of the surreal Queensland
night sky during an electrical storm and takes its title from a poem by
David Malouf.
'You balloon above me, a big cloud burning with breath; a coolness settles
on my skin.'
[David Malouf, Elegy: The Absences (UQP, 1980).]
The work is scored for winds, brass and percussion and was commissioned,
with assistance from the Australia Council, by the Queensland Philharmonic
Orchestra for their tenth anniversary in 1986.
The poetry of David Malouf has been quite a strong creative influence
on me. In particular, his collection of verses from the early 1980s First
Things Last - an anthology full of beautiful renderings of Queensland
and Tuscany - has been a recurrent source of inspiration. Cloud Burning
takes its title from a poem in that collection.
'You balloon above me, a big cloud burning with breath; a coolness settles
on my skin.'
[David Malouf, Elegy: The Absences (UQP, 1980).]
At the time of writing Cloud Burning I was living in London and this image
of Malouf's triggered quite strong recollections of the violent corruscations
of the Brisbane night sky during an electrical storm and also - perhaps
ironically - seemed an apt description of some of Turner's outrageously
livid paintings of sky with which I had just become familiar first-hand.
Malouf's image is also about inner landscapes and the landscape of my
piece is more internal than descriptive.
The work is formed from the rhythmic exploration of a series of chords
which function thematically as quite distinct and separate motifs. The
shape of the work is a gradual accumulation of energy followed by an expansive
'arrival' - a shape that I employed on a larger scale in my opera Black
River. The work is scored for winds, brass and percussion and was commissioned,
with assistance from the Australia Council, by the Queensland Philharmonic
Orchestra for their tenth anniversary in 1986.
Purchasing Links
Buy, borrow or hire scores, parts and recordings from
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