Dreamscape

Dreamscape is a work for piano, harpsichord and live electronics. It was commissioned by Keynote+ (Kate Ryder and Jane Chapman) and premiered by them at the Connect Festival, Malmö in November 2011 and the ‘Out Hear’ Festival, Kings Place, London in June 2012.I wrote down a text describing a dream on the 11th April 2001. I see and hear music for piano, harpsichord and electronics – it suggests a piece based on the idea of resonance and changing colours. The visual description of electronic surfaces I think is metaphorical. This suggests the role of the electronics would be to extend, colour and embellish – and amplification would be used to balance the two instruments. In the dream I heard sounds that contrasted yet were integrated in the same sonic space. When at some time in 2010 the opportunity arose for me to write this piece for Keynote+ I remembered the dream and started to elaborate the idea. Stockhausen (Refrain), Cage (Etudes Australes) and some Feldman lie behind some of the sense of time and space. But I always write for specific performers – I have written two works for Jane Chapman (Points of Departure (1993) and Time-Space (with baroque flute) (2001) both with electronics) and Kate Ryder has recently performed Shades (of Night and Day) (1989) – and small hints of these appear. The final work is a lot more developed than the dream sketch – though something of this remains in three ‘chorales’, at the beginning, middle and end. Spatialisation is multichannel (though a ‘touring version’ with simplified projection is available) enveloping the audience in ‘spatialised colour’