composer
Though first known through his collaboration with director Barrie Kosky in the Opera Australia production of his The Ascension of Robert Flau (1990), Douglas Knehans (b. 1957) is perhaps best ...
related works
Black City : Concerto for violoncello and orchestra Nº 2 / Douglas Knehans
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Orchestra
Instruments:
vc-solo dulc pf hp sopr(offstage) 2fl(picc) 2ob 2cl 2fg(cfg) 4h 2tpt 2trb-t trb-b tb timp 3perc str
Pinnekes-water : voorspel voor symf. orkest, X. 1949, op. 39 / Ary Verhaar
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Orchestra
Instruments:
3342 4331 timp perc cel str
Ouverture : voor orkest, (1954) / Henk Badings
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Orchestra
Instruments:
2222 4331 timp perc str
Variaties en thema : (1967) / gecomponeerd door Bertus van Lier
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Orchestra
Instruments:
3222 4230 timp perc str
composition
Black City : Concerto for violoncello and orchestra Nº 2 / Douglas Knehans
Contains:
Letter to a Friend—(Expressive)
River on Fire—(Scherzo)
It Will Be Rain Tonight—(Passacaglia)
You Asked What the Heart Can Carry—(Cadenza)
Midst of a Burning Fiery Furnace—(Finale)
Description:
My second cello concerto Black City sits in contrast in many ways to my first cello concerto Soar. My first concerto is in one long movement with rather conventional scoring and is about striving and our innate urge to overcome and grow.
My second concerto, in contrast, is first of all on a much larger scale or ‘bigger canvas’ than the first concerto being cast in five rather long movements, each with an internal intensity that links them and creates the narrative thread of the music. Much of this music is about degradation, erosion and loss. As with most of my music I mean these somewhat geological ideas as metaphors for internal psycho-emotional change that takes place within us. As we grow and change it is not always about gain and stability but can also be about loss, diminishment and structural change. The metaphor of a rich internal city slowly eroding gave rise to the title of the work. I was extremely fortunate to come across the amazing poetry of the young American poet Dave Lucas, whose take on the decaying Midwestern cities of the United States (where I was both born and now live) had in them many internal and external metaphors that seemed so appropriate to my work.
Each movement has an inscription taken from Mr. Lucas’s poems from the volume Weather, while each also has a different structure and character despite the narrative thread that links them.
Douglas Knehans