Gordon Monro - "Its Claws Lifted Up to Pray"

"The Voice of the Phoenix (2)"

List of pieces

"For Death has Climbed In Through Our Windows"

"Its Claws Lifted Up to Pray"

For contralto voice and tape, duration 4 mins 15 secs (1994)

Program note

This piece is a setting of the poem "Sparrow Fall" by Dorothy Hewett.

Stiff in the guttering,
the small sparrow lay.
Its beak gaped, its claws
lifted up to pray.
Cold I lay in the night,
straight I lay in the bed,
only in the first light
I turned my head.

The tape part is derived entirely from recordings of the composer's voice, speaking and singing the four words "stiff", "pray", "cold" and "light". The recordings were transferred to computer and stretched in time, pitch-shifted, and in some cases filtered, and the resulting sounds mixed together on the computer. The tape part was realised on a workstation belonging to the School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Sydney.

This piece was written at the request of Marianne Powles, who asked seven composers to set this same poem. The resulting pieces were first performed in a concert called "Sparrow Fall" on 29th April 1994.

Performances, etc

"Sparrow Fall" concert, organised by the Coruscations Ensemble, Old Darlington School, University of Sydney, 29 April 1994 (Sydney); voice: Catherine Playoust;
Sydney University Mathematical Society concert, Old Darlington School, University of Sydney, 23 September 1994; voice: Catherine Playoust.

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