Music compositions

Abstract

Games draws its inspiration from the first movement of Shostakovich's String Quartet No.3, Op. 73, particularly the opening theme, played by the first violin. I have taken this melody and played games with it; twisting it, bending it, fragmenting it and developing the resulting material in ways that journey far from the original theme. The outcome is a new and exciting piece of music. Games was written specifically for the ADAM International Cello Competition Young Composers Competition in 2006. The competition specified that the composition was to be under five minutes and based on a theme by Shostakovich. Games won the competition and was used as a compulsory requirement in the second round of the cello competition which was held in Christchurch, in July 2006. It was also performed in the competition's Finals Gala concert by the youngest competitor Hee Young Lim from Korea. This is the performance on the attached CD. After hearing the initial performances of Games I made some alterations. I was unsatisfied was the lack of flow from one musical 'game' to the next. To solve this I have taken out the microtones as I found they were unnecessary in conveying the character of the piece. I also toned down my use of sul ponticello which often distorted the pitch, adjusted the dynamics to bring out the themes more and lessened my use of staccato in favor of legato playing to get more horizontal flow. I found my use of repeated notes (that are in the recording) just before the second to last tempo change at the end of the piece too predictable. I have replaced them with notes that continue to reach higher into the cellos tessitura to better portray the building excitement of the final climax that I had been intending.