Lincoln Brady
Bergmann: 9 pages
Australian –born guitarist/ composer Lincoln Brady’s latest piece is based upon an Ancient Greek statue discovered in 1998, and which took five years to restore to something like its original design and shape. This two-movement work begins with an Introduzione and an alarming looking first section full of very carefully written mordents that are either at the top of a three note chord, or in the middle voice, which are tricky to negotiate without losing control of the rhythmic nature of the 24 bars that make up the introduction. At bar 25 a faster Mosso section begins with a rolling triplet quaver idea often topped by artificial harmonics before an accelerando and a crescendo suddenly turn the music into groups of ten hemi – demi – semi – quavers that traverse all over the fingerboard, occasionally as high as the fourteenth fret. A Grave flat –orientated single melody line then takes over briefly before a final coda of demi – semi – quavers underneath some unusually voiced chords and artificial harmonics in-between brings the player to a final tambora chord t6hat leave the piece in thin air, owing to its lack of a resolution.
The Danza that follows is largely in 7/8 with odd bars of 4/8, 2/4 and 4/4 interwoven between. Rhythmically divided into bars of 3, 2, and 2 quavers it is a variation of the opening movement’s first theme, and moves in and out of several chord sequences that take the piece in and out of its Em key signature many times. The opening Allegro Moderato then suddenly turns into a Largo, and more groups of 10- note arpeggios followed by various other combinations of small notes in large groupings. A poco cresc e accel takes us back into the opening Allegro Moderato and its second theme, which then takes us suddenly into the coda and some arpeggio – driven bars leading to a final slam – bang finish on E Major chords, all heavily accented.
This was an interesting piece full of sounds that were unusual but still tonally driven. The groupings of very small note – value sections and the opening mordents in movement one made this far from easy, and one would need to be a relatively advanced player to get it to sound OK, but that said, if the style appeals then this piece might very well be right up your musical street!
Chris Dumigan
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