Commissioned by the Australian National Academy of Music for the Melbourne International Arts Festival
First performance by Taryn Richards, Dominique Chaseling and Agatha Yim, St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne, 14 October 2009
“. . . in Paradiso” was composed for a performance of Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross. Six composers were asked to write music that might be played between Haydn’s meditations for strings. The other composers were William Barton, Brett Dean, James Ledger, Georges Lentz and Anthony Pateras. ” . . . in Paradiso” was created to occupy the slot after the second ‘Word’ (more accurately, utterance) and before the third – specifically, after the sentence ‘Verily, I say unto thee, today thou shalt be with me in Paradise’ and before ‘Mother, behold thy son’. Haydn’s music for the former ends with a chord of C major, while his music for the latter is in E. So my ” . . . in Paradiso” joined the two.
A.F.
Reviews
" . . . in Paradiso" . . . made a vivid impact through its piercing polyphonic interplay.
Clive O'Connell, The Age