Fantasia on a theme of the little ragamuffin (soprano with chamber orchestra)
Robert Davidson · 2012
This composition creates an altered time experience by applying a time-stretching process to materials from Concerto op. 7 no. 7 by Baroque composer Guiseppe Valentini (nicknamed Straccioncino, or the little ragamuffin). Each sonority in Valentini's work is extended and used as basis for a resonant texture of much longer duration than its original context. The result is a dreamlike meditation on experience of memory and time. It takes ideas from technological developments, such as fast-fourier-transform based time-stretching algorithms for audio and applies them to standard music notation. The work was first performed by The Camerata of St John's at Empire Theatre, Toowoomba on 16 March 2012. Program note: When Camerata of St John’s concertmaster Brendan Joyce put me in touch with Valentini's music, I was immediately attracted to its energy and wit. I wanted to find a new perspective and mood hidden behind bravura surface. With burst-of-energy fourth movement of his Concerto op. 7 no. 7 ringing in my ears, I travelled around France and Italy by train in January (2012), on way to visit a friend in Florence (I had a few days before starting a tour with my ensemble Topology). Not being much of a tourist, I nevertheless found myself passing, on train's route, through some of biggest stops on typical if-it's-Tuesday-this-must-be-Belgium trip. Rather than sightseeing, though, I sat and listened to what was going on in my head; sitting beside St Mark's in Venice, Duomo in Florence and Notre Dame in Paris, I was hearing a dreamlike, transformed version of Valentini's music; nostalgic, somewhat nebulous, floating and tender.