related works

Riff : for wind ensemble / Edward Top

Genre: Orchestra
Subgenre: Wind ensemble (2-12 players)
Scoring: 2fl 2ob cl cl-b fg cfg 2h trp trb tb

Canto di speranza : poema per violino ed orchestra, 1997-1998 / Ton de Kruyf

Genre: Orchestra
Subgenre: Violin and orchestra
Scoring: 2220 2220 2perc cel hp str vl-solo

planète verte, planète bleue : for violin and orchestra / Max Knigge

Genre: Orchestra
Subgenre: Violin and orchestra
Scoring: picc 2fl 2ob 2cl cl-b 2bsn 4h 2tpt 3trb perc hrp str

Kleine symfonie : voor solo viool en kamerorkest, 1989 / Henk Alkema

Genre: Orchestra
Subgenre: Violin and orchestra
Scoring: 2222 2000 timp str vl-solo

composition

My Skeletonized Portrait : for violin and orchestra / Edward Top

Author(s):
Top, Edward (Composer)
Description:
This 10-minute work is based on the etching with the same title of Belgian artist James Ensor. On separate panels, it shows two states of the artist himself. One is a ‘skeletonized’ version of the other, as if the artist celebrates the wearing of his own death mask. This transformation from one state to the next, from the real to the surreal, from the ordinary to the grotesque is the main element in the composition. The orchestral introduction already shows this process of transformation. The first violins play the initial phrase of a melody in the style of Tchaikovsky that is soon brought into a surrealistic realm of celesta, harp and strings harmonics. This process is then applied to the large form. The violin solo expands the initial phrase after which the mood entirely changes into a grotesque dance, entitled ‘Entry of the Masked Skeletons’. ‘My Schizoid Portrait’ is the subtitle of a cadenza-like section, which culminates in a grand and slow postlude.

Edward Top