Unbound is a work which explores a sensation of becoming being free and unconstrained that accompanied its creation. It transitions through opposing forces – consonance and dissonance, light and dark, deep serenity and turbulence. It could be best heard as a metaphor for discovery and metamorphosis, of music as much as of the self. Much of it is in slow tempi, holding a magnifying glass to an interiorised world of intimate, mysterious sounds, framed by silence.
The piece is divided into three parts, and structured around two melodic ideas which form the foundation for all other melodic material. In the opening bars, idea A begins with a slow, dotted rhythmic motif, faintly echoing the first four notes of the Ricercar from Bach’s A Musical Offering; this reappears in different guises throughout the piece.
Idea B is a searching melody beginning with an upward chromatic series of pitches; this appears in tentative, disguised forms before being stated as a robust theme in C major well into the piece. Part III, the final section of the work, is an atonal three part fugue over the Ricercar theme, played on cello pizzicato. Marked Fuga Maestoso (Majestic Fugue) it develops into a joyful finale, a kind of passionate slow dance, which while retaining atonal elements becomes more tonally oriented, before eventually ebbing away.
Unbound was originally commissioned by the NZ String Quartet who premiered it in 2011 at the Adam Chamber Festival in Nelson. This performance by the Aroha Quartet is of the revised version (2019). The composer wishes to thank the Aroha Quartet for their support of new NZ music and for generously making this performance possible.
Brigid Ursula Bisley is a composer, arranger, transcriber, conductor, violinist, teacher and Kodály music specialist. In the early 1980s she studied violin performance with Mary O’Brien and David Nalden at the University of Auckland, and composition there with John Rimmer and John Elmsly. In 1982 she attended tutorials and concerts at the Institute for New Music in Freiburg, Germany, with Brian Ferneyhough, and also met Gyorgy Kurtag - both of whom made a lasting impression.
Brigid has written for cello, piano, voice, Taonga Puoro, string quartet, mixed chamber ensembles and orchestra. She has been commissioned by Alexander Ivashkin, James Tennant, Stroma, the NZ String Quartet, Plexus (Melbourne), choreographer Alison East, film makers Alyx Duncan and Athina Tsoulis, playwright Charles Bisley and former Waitakere City Mayor Sir Bob Harvey. Other artists she has worked with include Richard Nunns, Mahinarangi Tocker, Whirimako Black, Rolf Gjelsten, Colin Carr, Stefan Cassomenos, Richard Liu, Elena Abramova, Lilya Arefyeva, Emma Roxburgh, Pepe Becker, Gina Sanders, Fiona Ferens, Mary Aston, Miro Duna and Hershal Herscher. Her works have been performed in NZ and abroad, and recorded and broadcasted on Radio NZ Concert FM. She was a finalist for the SOUNZ Contemporary Awards in 1999 withe her song cycle Come Back Safely.
[Programme sourced from the composer and SOUNZ]
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