related works

My Skeletonized Portrait : for violin and orchestra / Edward Top

Genre: Orchestra
Subgenre: Violin and orchestra
Scoring: vl-solo 3fl 2ob eh 2cl cl-b 2fg cfg 4h 3trp 2trb trb-b tb timp 3perc hp cel str

Sextet 1990 : voor pauken en koperblazers, 1990 / Mathieu Geelen

Genre: Chamber music
Subgenre: Mixed ensemble (2-12 players)
Scoring: h 2trp trb tb timp

Comment on Mi Mi : for instrumental ensemble, 1993 / Bart de Kemp

Genre: Chamber music
Subgenre: Mixed ensemble (2-12 players)
Scoring: fl ob cl fg h perc pf

Impulsen : viola, clavicembalo (ossia spinetta), 1976 / Peter Visser

Genre: Chamber music
Subgenre: Mixed ensemble (2-12 players); Viola and keyboard instrument
Scoring: cemb/spt vla

composition

The stillpoint : for violin and vibraphone, opus 4, 1994/1995 / Edward Top

Other authors:
Top, Edward (Composer)
Contains:
In the silent croaking night
As the world turns
A pattern of timeless moments
The point of intersection of the timeless with time
Description:
Program note (English): The basic idea of this work is that two instruments are playing the same melodic material, sometimes in unison, but most of the time put together in asymmetrical rhythms. The piece has four movements, each of them with a subtitle. The first movement (in the silent croacking night) has a ‘mysterioso’ character. It consists of a melody, based on a six-tone mode, which is played several times in different tempos. The second movement (as the world turns) is more or less a unisonmelody that increases in tempo step by step. Little banal quotes taken from the massmedia are unrecognisably integrated in the modal sound. Through an ascending whole tone scale the third movement (a pattern of timeless moments), where this scale plays an important role, is reached. As indicated in the subtitle, this movement is a melodic pattern consisting of little mosaic-stones with mutually different characteristics; slow or fast, resoluto or mysterioso, unison or just about unison, molto brutale or
adagio desolato. This last germ cell (adagio desolato) will slowly grow to a high, final melody in the fourth movement. The final movement (the point of intersection of the timeless with time) opens with an enormous fortissimo where the vibraphonist lets a glissando ring. From the chromatic field that is sounding, one by one notes are being demped which I call a ‘negative’ melody (instead of a series of played tones set against a silent background (ordinary melody), now there are a series of silenced tones against a background consisting of all tones of the vibraphone ringing).
This point is the climax of the work. It is the pivot on which everything hangs. - EDWARD TOP