composer
The music of composer Edward Top is characterized by extreme contrasts. Rather than being an abstract and independent medium existing outside the human experience, music has the power to induce ...
related works
Sonate : voor piano, 1997 / Edward Top
Genre:
Chamber music
Subgenre:
Piano
Instruments:
pf
Sept Mouvements : for violin and viola solo and orchestra / Jan-Peter de Graaff
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Violin and orchestra
Instruments:
vln/vla-solo picc 2fl ob eh cl cl-b 2fg sax-sopr sax-a 4h 2tpt flüg 2trb trb-b tb pf cel hp timp perc str
Toamna : ballata moldava, per siringa ed orchestra, 1982 / Willem Strietman
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Flute and orchestra; Violin and orchestra; Harmonica and Orchestra
Instruments:
2222 sax-a 2110 2perc cel hp str panfl-solo (or other instr)
Concerto : per violino ed orchestra, 1968-1969 / door Hendrik Andriessen
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Violin and orchestra
Instruments:
2222 2220 timp hp str vl-solo
composition
My Skeletonized Portrait : for violin and orchestra / Edward Top
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