LINES OF LIGHT

____________________________________________________________

ROBERT ALLWORTH (B.1943): SUITE FOR ORGAN 2001.

VISIONS OF SAINT CATHERINE LABOUR
SAINT MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL
1. SAINT CATHERINE LABOUR
2. SAINT JOAN OF ARC
3. PROCESSIONAL SAINT MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL
4. THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
5. IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY
6. THE BLEEDING HOST OF SANTAREM PORTUGAL
Carson P Cooman Organ, Rochester Christian Reformed Church, Penfield, New York, U.S.A.

My Suite for Organ 2001 was commissioned by the Roman Catholic Parish of Saint
Michael, Callas, New York, U.S.A., for the dedication of their new organ during 2002. This
music reflects my devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, to the Saints, and to the Eucharistic
sacrifice of the Mass. Suite for Organ 2001, in six movements, is dedicated to the Saint
Michael Roman Catholic Parish of Callas and to the brilliant American organist and
composer Carson P Cooman; its score is published by The Keys Press, 66 Clotilde Street,
Mount Lawley WA 6050, Australia.
R.A.
____________________________________________________________

7. CARSON P COOMAN (American composer):

GALLERY MUSIC: A PROCESSIONAL FANFARE (2000), FOR ORGAN;
TWILIGHT UNDULATIONS (2001), FOR ORGAN;
SUNBURST: A RECESSIONAL FANFARE (2001), FOR ORGAN.
Carson P Cooman Organ, Rochester Christian Reformed Church, Penfield, New York, U.S.A.

Gallery Music is a processional fanfare. It is stately and majestic, and imagined as a

procession taking place within a huge gallery. This work is dedicated to Janet and Arthur
Perrin. Twilight Undulations was written in memory of American composer Robert
Starer (19242001). It is based on the plainsong Ad dominum dum tribularer clamavi,
intended to be sung at Vespers on the Sunday after the Feast of Corpus Christi. This
plainsong is never heard directly in its original form, but rather has gone through a series
of pitch-transformations instigated by the composers processes. The transformed
plainsong is presented at the outset, and then in a reverse canon at the octave with itself.
Sunburst is a recessional fanfare that inhabits the same lydian-flavored sound-world as
Gallery Music; it is dedicated to Robert Allworth.
C.P.C.
____________________________________________________________

~1~
8. ROBERT ALLWORTH (B.1943): SUNSET OVER LAVENDER BAY (2001), FOR SOLO PIANO.
Betty Beath piano.
9. ROBERT ALLWORTH (B.1943): APOLLO BAY (2001), FOR SOLO PIANO.
Sally Mays piano.
10. ROBERT ALLWORTH (B.1943): BRADFIELD PARK (2001), FOR SOLO PIANO.
Andrew Robbie piano.

The above three piano compositions are all impressionistic pieces of music composed
using serial techniques. My Sunset over Lavender Bay and Bradfield Park evoke two
locations (both of them favourite places of the composer) in Sydneys Kirribilli, a suburb
on the harbour. Apollo Bay is reminiscent of a lovely waterside site at Apollo Bay, in
Victoria.
R.A.
11. ROBERT ALLWORTH (B.1943): CARDBOARD CANTATA (2000), FOR TWO MANDOLINS,
MANDOLA, GUITAR, BASS GUITAR, AND PIANO.
~ For Prince Lorenzo Montesini ~
The Sydney Mandolins, directed by Adrian Hooper. Paul Hooper and Adrian Hooper mandolins /
Joyce Bootsma mandola / Barbara Hooper guitar / Michael Hooper bass guitar / Andrew
Robbie piano.

Cardboard Cantata is the title of one of Prince Lorenzo Montesinis books, about which I
had read an engaging account in another of the Princes books, My Life and Other
Misdemeanours. This account inspired me to write a composition named after the former
book. In seven short movements, my Cardboard Cantata employs serial techniques, and is
dedicated to Prince Lorenzo Montesini.
R.A.
____________________________________________________________

12. IAN SHANAHAN (B.1962): LINES OF LIGHT: SEVEN IMPROVISATIONS ON

(1991/1993), FOR AMPLIFIED RECORDERS (1 PLAYER), TWO YAMAHA DX7 KEYBOARD
SYNTHESIZERS (1 OR 2 PLAYERS), AND METALLIC PERCUSSION INSTRUMENTS (1 OR 2 PLAYERS).

Ian Shanahan amplified recorders / Roger Dean Yamaha DX7 keyboard synthesizers / Daryl
Pratt percussion.

My title Lines of Light is appropriated from a novel of the same name by Daniele Del
Giudice, consisting almost entirely of a dialogue between a novelist and a theoretical
physicist. I have been able, with this title, to genuinely imbue the work with meaning at a
number of levels. Metaphorically, Lines of Light invokes the notion of solar spectra, as
manifested by the phenomenon of the arcing rainbow which appears to comprise seven
colours and various Fraunhofer absorption lines (dark spectral bands suppressed
frequencies evincing the coolness of the Suns surface compared to its much hotter core).
Hence, this piece embraces seven sections, all but the last being proportioned according to
the relative wavelengths of Fraunhofer lines A to H. (The fact that there are only three
primary colours is mirrored by the minimum number of players.) Moreover, I would hope
that the sounds themselves which emanate from my unusual instrumental array provoke,

~2~
within the listeners mental landscape, various images of light.

Beyond this physical metaphor, I have extensively utilized more ancient and mystical
associations with the word/ikon of light. The final section of Lines of Light,
(aitheros melos: Music of the Spheres) a transcription from an earlier
version of this piece exhibits a temporal organization and proportions which are
determined by gematria, the Ancient Greek (and Jewish) Kabbalistic system of isopsephial
equivalence between word and number that demonstrates various geometrical truths, and
ascribes arithmetically a network of hidden connections to otherwise distinct words and
archetypes. (In addition to certain Gnostic texts, the sacred hermetic writings of the
Platonists and Pythagoreans as well as the Holy Scriptures in the New Testament are
all supersaturated with the silent, mysterious truths of number.) On the other hand, the
first six improvisations in Lines of Light whose basis-materials nonetheless stem from
the fully composed were planned to fill out 485 seconds, proceeding from
chaos to order. (485 , the Greek mystics Tetragrammaton, equivalent to the OM
of Eastern cosmogony. Also, not insignificantly ... 485 : The All-Holy.)

Lines of Light: Seven Improvisations on , commissioned by the neoteric

new-music ensemble austraLYSIS with funds from the Performing Arts Board of the
Australia Council for the Arts, is dedicated to the memory of Barbara Burke an
Australian Christian worker murdered in Jerusalem during the early 1990s. Her name,
together with various Biblical epigrams on light (: phos), is cryptically encoded into
the music. (I do trust that Mrs Burke would have approved of the esoteric Christian
imagery!)
I.S.
13. IAN SHANAHAN (B.1962): ARC OF LIGHT (1993), FOR SOLO PIANO.
Roger Dean piano.

Dispersed sunlight, refracted through atmospheric raindrops = a rainbow = an Arc {of The
Covenant [Jewish Mythology]} of Light, that immense arc of light which touches the
earth and makes it sing (Arp).

This unassuming little piece brief and deliberately rather straightforward, to entice the
timid is an offshoot of my Lines of Light (similarly concerned with rainbows) in that it
derives from the same harmonic fields, and possesses roughly comparable macrotemporal
proportions. Arc of Light is gratefully dedicated to my dear friend and colleague, the
composer and CD producer Robert Allworth, who was responsible for the works
Genesis. Robert telephoned me on 4 December 1993, and an amusing dialogue ensued:

R.A.: Ian, Im producing another CD and would love to include a short piano piece of yours ...
say, about two minutes long. Do you have one available? I.S.: Sorry, Robert No, I havent...
R.A.: Could you write one then, and deliver it to me today? I.S.: [stunned silence fills a very
uncomfortable pause, while I reflect upon my usual tortuously slow rate of composition]
... Yes! (And three hours later, I completed my Arc!)

Anyway, Arc of Light is a contemplative study in time, resonance, and colour hopefully
not too difficult to perform. While writing this compact work, I had the talented young
Australian pianist Simon Docking in mind to premire and record it.

~3~
 I.S.
____________________________________________________________

14. ERIC GROSS (B.1926): SALLY IN THE MALLEE, OP.250 (2001), FOR SOLO PIANO.
Sally Mays piano.

Sally in the Mallee, Op.250 was written especially for the Australian pianist Sally Mays,
who is an enthusiastic supporter of Australian music. This is a whimsical and lively
composition for piano because Sally had asked me to write something a little bit crazy.
There are several themes, related to each other, which keep the momentum going
throughout this work except for a brief segment where several pauses and some musical
displeasure indicate that Sally has stumbled in the Mallee.
E.G.
____________________________________________________________

15. DEREK STRAHAN (B.1935): THE BEETHOVEN BOOGIE (1982), FOR JAZZ FUSION
ENSEMBLE.

Tony Ansell electronic piano / Graham Jesse alto saxophone / Ivor James cello / Jim Kelly
guitar / Greg Lyon bass guitar / Mark Riley and Ian Bloxsom drum kit and percussion.

This piece, the third movement of my Jazz Fusion Suite of 1982, is by way of a musical
joke a table-turning on those responsible for a pop-craze from the 1980s known as
Switched-on Classics, a parade of 4- to 8-bar statements of well-known themes from
the classics set to a disco beat of unvarying tempo: a procedure which irritated many,
myself included. The table-turning consists of writing an entire movement in
disco/boogie style, conceived in strict sonata form. Opportunities for improvisation occur
in several bridging passages, and in the development section. In devising musical themes
for this piece I sought guidance from the manner of writing found in the early works of
Beethoven, a composer known for his robust sense of humour.

The first movement of my Jazz Fusion Suite, Triple Six, was released on the Compact
Disc Fray (JADCD 1086); the second movement, Free Spirit, on Music for a Candlelight
Dinner (JADCD 1058).
D.S.
____________________________________________________________

~4~
TRACKS 17 Recorded during June 2001 at the Rochester Christian Reformed Church,
Penfield, New York, U.S.A. The organ was built in 1985 by the organ-builders Pels and
Van Leeuwen of the Netherlands.

TRACKS 811 & 14 2MBS-FM productions: Track 8 recorded 27/4/2001, Tracks 9 & 14
recorded 31/5/2001 and Tracks 10 & 11 recorded 22/6/2001, at 2MBS-FM Studio C, St.
Leonards, Sydney. Producer Robert Allworth; Sound Engineer Kerry Joyner.

TRACK 12 Recorded 25/9/1994 at the Main Studio, Music Department, School of

Contemporary Arts, the University of Western Sydney, Kingswood, Sydney. Producer
Ian Shanahan; Sound Engineer & Digital Editing Adrian Luca.

TRACK 13 Recorded live, 21/10/1995, during a concert given by the ensemble

austraLYSIS at the Joseph Post Auditorium, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Sydney.
Producer Roger Dean; Sound Engineer Greg White; Digital Denoising Adrian Luca,
the University of Western Sydney, Kingswood, Sydney, 22/12/1999.

TRACK 15 Recorded 19/10/1982, at Ganda Studios, Sydney.

Lines of Light compilation mastered by Steve Smart, Studios 301, Sydney, ??/??/2001.
Programme Notes compiled and edited by Ian Shanahan.
CD Jacket and Cover Creation, Visions of Saint Catherine Labour and Saint Michael the
Archangel, by Handpress Graphics Ph. (02) 9918 5271 Fax (02) 9918 5274.
Lines of Light is the 75th CD in the Jade Series of Australian Composers.

~5~