Reed Music | Sheet Music Publications for Guitar

Sheet Music Publications for Guitar

performed by Gerard McChystal & Craig Ogden

Cloud Eight? There is an aspect of melancholy about the whole idea. Less than one might dream of. Yet it is also an opportunity to think again. To re-evaluate what is worthwhile. In musical terms, this finally leads to a more elated reverie. Not shouting from the roof tops, but perhaps an inner elation while taking a solitary stroll far from the madding crowd.

This version for alto saxophone and guitar was adapted specifically for Gerard McChrystal and Craig Ogden, who gave the premiere performance on 14 October 2005 in the Weston Gallery of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, Cardiff and subsequently recorded the piece for their CD, Pluck Blow (Meridian Records).

	1. Wind Dust on a Butterfly Wing
	2. Challenge
	3. Bounty
	4. Wild Flowers
	5. Moon Track
	6. Affinity
	7. Victors

Notes:

The texts for the song cycle “Dust on a Butterfly’s Wing” were selected from seven poems by the Australian poet Minnie Agnes Filson, better known as ‘Rickety Kate’. Born in 1898 this remarkable Australian woman was an accomplished pianist, singer and dancer until she was struck down by rheumatoid arthritis early in her life. Yet her creativity continued in poetry. ‘Rickety Kate’ died in 1971 and it was her daughter-in-law Edda Filson who first introduced me to her work. She is mainly remembered to for her collection “Rhymes & Whimsies”.

The cycle was commissioned for the 20th anniversary of Sydney Radio station 2MBS-FM for whom Edda worked then as programmer and announcer.

The first performance was a live-to-air broadcast on the 29/1/1994 with soprano Rosemary Signorelli and the composer. This version for piano and voice is arranged from the original for guitar.

Notes on the songs:

The cycle opens with a song about the enigma of the “wind” - it takes no heed of rich or poor, great or lowly – it is unchanged through the ages of time. A scurrying figure is representative of the wind rushing by.

The 2nd is the challenge of “age” and growing old, and a meditation on “time” itself. How we handle our mortality when time tells us, “you will grow old and cease to be”.

The 3rd song deals with the age old scourge of “hunger” – the outrage that, with all earth’s bounty, children still starve. The final line asks, “where are wisdom & justice fled when men & women are crying for bead?”

In “Wildflowers” we hear them cry out, “lift us out of the vessels of silver & glass we are alien to their sheen & their gloss”. They speak lovingly of the dull earth and the feel of the wind. - they tell us that they are not meant to be inside and, had they the power they would “shatter the ceiling”.

“Moon-Track” tells of the true nature of moonlight and in “Affinity”, a cabbage contemplates a rose.

The last song speaks of the miracle of “Spring” – the victory of infinitesimal things. We hear the buzzing and crawling of tiny life and the grass growing as the great “contending of tiny green spears” against the earth’s “Brazen shoulder”. In some ways it alludes to the “Butterfly” effect – that the tiniest things affect the biggest things.

R. Charlton Dec 2007