Instrumentation

solo flute - strings

Availability

Score and parts for hire

Score 0571523919 and piano score and part 0571568211 on sale

Programme Notes

There is something innately human about cherishing one's deepest desires while knowing that they are impossible. Part of the model in this work is also the folly that a flute - the instrument itself - might harbour its own secret wishes. In a universe where all is possible, what might a flute dream? The work uses one of my preferred architectures: a single movement with three sections in the classic form moderate-slow-fast. Although the solo line is unashamedly virtuosic, the intention is not to dazzle but to explore as much dreaminess as possible, filtered through the wilfulness of a metal pipe which believes it has no limits. There is no specific consideration in this music of the opium pipe, from which the term pipe dream originates. Pipe Dreams was commissioned by ABN AMRO for the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Emmanuel Pahud in celebration of new Australian music. It was first performed by those musicians on 12th July, 2003 at the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House, Australia.

Reviews

‘A haunting central passage provided a satisfying emotional counterweight to the scintillating brilliance of the outer sections.’

The Australian (Murray Black), 19 October 2009

 

‘Pahud returned for Vine’s Pipe Dreams, a new, immediately attractive piece written for these players, premiered in Sydney in July. Three sections (moderate, slow, fast) offer dividing marks. But Vine’s imagination flows without ceasing, from the first flute arabesques over syncopated, hiccupping strings to a finale seemingly written to showcase the ACO’s genius for playing fast without ever falling over. Robust, idiomatically written, with conventional tonality just about in earshot, Pipe Dreams is a dream of a piece; I can’t wait to hear it again.’

The Times (Geoff Brown), 24 October 2003

Pipe Dreams

St. Andrew’s United Church (Edmonton, AB, Canada)

Jeffrey Khaner/Chamber Orchestra of Edmonton/Lidia Khaner

Pipe Dreams

Yomiuri Otemachi Hall (Ōtemachi, Japan)

Jiro Yoshioka/Million Concert Orchestra

Pipe Dreams

Perth Concert Hall (Perth, WA, Australia)

University of Western Australia/Alan Lourens

Pipe Dreams

+ broadcast 7.30pm Radio 3 Live in Concert

Grand Theatre (Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom)

Emily Beynon/BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Jurjen Hempel

Pipe Dreams

QSO Studio South Bank (Brisbane, QLD, Australia)

Hayley Radke/Queensland Symphony Orchestra/Sarah-Grace Williams