Matière: Le Palais de la mort by Ian Pace

An online alert for tomorrow, June 14:

City Pierrot Ensemble: Eight Songs for a Mad King

Monday, 14th June 2021, 19:00 – 21:00

Programme:

Simon Bainbridge, Four Primo Levi Settings (1996)

Susan Lolavar, Girl (2017)

Ian Pace, Matière: Le Palais de la mort (2021) (WP)

Peter Maxwell Davies, Eight Songs for a Mad King (1969)

Ian Pace's new work Matière: Le Palais de la mort, inspired by visions of the piano playing of Emily Brontë and the musical/sonic dimensions of the Brontë family, completes the programme.

The composer shares his views on the piece on his blog:

This piece began to form in my mind at the time of a visit to Haworth Parsonage in summer 2019, looking round the house and in particular the square piano in one of the front rooms, and collections of music owned by Emily and Anne Brontë in particular. After reading further about the musical dimensions to the Brontë family, I began to form fantasies in my mind of a certain bombastic playing on the part of Emily (the most talented pianist of the siblings), incorporating some of the (then) popular pieces which she and Anne had in her collection, and developed an interest in creating a work of music which would be unquestionably from the present day, but incorporated aspects of the music which would have been heard in the Brontë household. (Read more)