Instrumentation
picc.2.2.ca.2.bcl.2.cbsn – 4431 – timp – perc(3):claves/2 cabaca/3 susp.cym/BD/wdbl/tam-t/mcas – strings
Availability
Score and parts for hire
Programme Notes
Dominic Muldowney
Polka for Orchestra
There are two clearly defined characters to the music of Dominic Muldowney. The first, largely associated with his earlier scores, is very much the product of post was avant garde. The second can be attributed to his Directorship of the music at the National Theatre. He succeeded his teacher, Harrison Birtwistle, in this post in 1976, which created a desire in him to write music that is more approachable and immediate. This second style informs his Polka, which was written for the Classical Music Awards of 1993.
The criticism that is so often levelled at composers of >accessible= music, that the audience is being patronised, does not apply to Muldowney for he stops well short of simplifying his musical idiom. There is a sense in which his music follows the work of Stravinsky, where clarity of rhythm and timbre are paramount, and his short exuberant work contains much that is both taxing and exacting.
Peter Stark