PopMarket - Augusta Read Thomas - Sun Plaits for Solo Violin - Multicolor

Following a long and rich tradition of composers who wrote for percussion (Edgard Varese, Harry Partch and John Cage, Lou Harrison) over the past 30 years, Augusta has composed extensively for percussion designing works including concerto for percussion quartet and orchestra, percussion playing bells from all around the world, quartets, solos, and two octets for percussion and string quartet. Additionally, many of her 65 orchestral works feature percussion.

Etude-variations Under Aldebaran is also a Concert Study, based on the poem by Australian poet James McAuley, but is very different from the collection of the 'Transcendental' 12. It's the only atonal piece in this album, and by far the most complicated in it's detail, and was written many years earlier. It consists of an introduction (wherein 8 fragmentary figures are laid out by a handful of notes), followed by 8 variations on each figure in turn (in 3 different tempi), concluding with a 'whispering' coda in the piano's high register.

It is significant that, when Lloyd turned his attention to writing concertante works for the violin, he avoided using full orchestral forces. His sensitivity to issues of balance and scrupulousness in scoring in his operas was matched by his determination that the solo instrument in his concertos should not be overwhelmed by thick orchestral textures. As he put it, 'I don't really like the relationship between the violin and the big modern orchestra. I hate to hear that poor little fiddle being totally swamped'.