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12 Variations
After Nina
Attack
Barren Grounds
Black River
Calling Music
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..
Going Into Sh ..
I Am Black
In Tempore Stellae
Journey to Horse..
Lines Drawn Fr..
little tree
"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
The meaning of...
Tonic Continent
Wiegenlied
Wild flower
Willow Bend
Winter Ground
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Tonic Continent (2000)
This work for violin, cello and piano was written for The Griffith Trio.
The work opens out from a hushed opening and although less than ten minutes
in duration is expansive in mood. The words I would best use to describe
the piece are hovering and anthem-like: 'hovering' in the suspended harmony
which is always tied to low, rich bass notes in the piano, and 'anthem-like'
in its transparently tender mood and the hymn-like passages that dominate
much of the writing. I owe the title, Tonic Continent, to a former student,
who used the phrase, 'continents of tonic' to describe the emotional effect
that comes from the slow movements of harmony in my Symphony - In Tempore
Stellae. I like the idea of slow moving continental plates as symbolic
of a type of inexorable tonal motion. Writing the work in the London gloom
in early Spring 2000 that remembered vastness seemed to me to represent
Australia, the tonic continent. The piece was commissioned with funds
from the Australia Council for the Arts.
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