Commissioned by Lisa Moore with financial assistance from the Music Board of the Australia Council
First performance by Symeron - Adrian Wallis (cello), Daniel Herscovitch (piano), Eugene Goossens Hall, Sydney, May 1994
First performance of revised version by Da Capo Chamber Players - Andre Emilianoff (cello) Lisa Moore (piano), Anthology Film Archive, New York, USA April 1999
Reviews
Ford's joke is a play on the word 'shake'. It was the older English word for 'trill'. The new piece is full of trills and tremelos but, I am glad to say, not so full of them, that it has no time for anything else.
Instead of being obsessively and incessantly preoccupied with musical gargling and buzzing, A Whole Lot of Shaking has time for some interesting thematic play and some swift pattern-making of a lively kind.
Roger Covell, Sydney Morning Herald