| Philip Cashian : Pietro's Machine |
"The idea for this Piano Trio came from a character in Italo
Calvino’s short story ‘The Cloven Viscount’. Pietro
is a carpenter and amateur inventor who becomes obsessed with building
machines that are beautiful and intricate but of no practical use.
I’ve always been interested in musical patterns and mechanisms
as a means of generating material for pieces, whether they remain
in a finished work or not. Pietro’s Machine is a set of four
miniatures, each propelled along by a simple harmonic or rhythmic
mechanism out of which the music grows. Each of the four tiny movements
is so short that all is left in and is clearly audible. The three
quaver and four quaver arpeggios in the opening bars of the first
movement, the minim arpeggios of the second movement, the alternating
triplet quavers of the third movement and the four chords in the
piano in the final movement are the fragments from which each movement
has been written. Movements maybe performed separately or in any
order."
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Biography
Born in Manchester in 1963 Philip Cashian studied at Cardiff University
and then with Oliver Knussen and Simon Bainbridge at the Guildhall School
of Music and Drama. In 1990 he was the Benjamin Britten Fellow in Composition
at Tanglewood where he studied with Lukas Foss. He was awarded the Britten
Prize in 1991, the Mendelssohn Scholarship in 1992 and the PRS Prize in
1995. Between 1993 and 1996 he was the Northern Arts Fellow in Composition
at Durham University. At present he lectures at Royal Holloway, University
of London.
Commissioned works for smaller forces include pieces for the Birmingham
Contemporary Music Group, the Composers Ensemble, the Kreutzer and Bingham
Quartets, the Endymion Ensemble, Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and the
Haffner Wind Quintet. A CD of chamber music, performed by the Birmingham
Contemporary Music Group, was recently released on the NMC Label. Future
commissions include a one act opera, a Concerto for Orchestra and a Clarinet
Quintet.
Other works of limited technical difficulty by Philip Cashian
title |
forces |
duration |
| Creeping Frogs, Flying Bats and Swimming Fish |
clarinet, bassoon, horn, string wuartet, double bass |
12 min |
| Landscape |
piano |
4 min |
| Music For the* Night Sky |
violin/viola/cello/piano or 2 violins/cello/piano |
5 min |
| Music for the Seven Horses |
3 clarinets and claves |
2 min |
| Slow Moon** |
piano |
2 min |
* Availabler through Chamber
Music 2000
** Published by ABRSM
All other works available through Bmic Contemporary Voices
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