The Goddess Returns
Scored for voice, string quartet and percussion (ghattam)
The Goddess Returns was the centerpiece of a large multi-media work I composed, of the same name, for an Elektra String Quartet performance project in 1999
Performed by: Antigone Foster, vocals
Elektra String Quartet - Mirka Rozmus and Romano Crivici, violins; Rudi Crivici, viola; Markus Hartstein, cello
Interview with Andrew Ford
-ABC Radio national
Romano Crivici
composer & performer
Trio for Flute, Harp & Viola
Arafura Haze ~18:30
Available from Wirripang Publishing
ISMN: ISMN 9790673149274
(Pardon the crappy synth recording
Genesis, unconscious associations: I was fortunate in the 1990's to travel to the Northern Territory, touring with Elektra String Quartet or working with the Arafura Music Collective. During those travels, I spent many a time wandering along the coast; looking at, and breathing the Arafura Sea or the scrubby edge of the desert behind.
.....and then there was the light; the mornings, dusk, the changing colours and moods, and the hints of other worlds beyond the horizon - a very different Australia than I was familiar with.
Musically, I made reference to Papuan New Guinean funerary music, performed by a group of individual mourners, each on individual bamboo, single note pipes. Sad to say, I can't be any more specific than that in acknowledging their culture, or the source; I can't remember where or when I saw them; apologies to the beings of that cultural world........ RC, 12th July 2020
Original sketches: Arafura Haze, 26th April, 1998 (?)
Reworked/developed: 8th - 29th Feb, 2020 Byron Bay
Trio for Flute, Guitar & Cello
Into the Depths... ~15:00
Available from Wirripang Publishing
ISMN: 9790673149281
(Pardon the crappy synth recording
Some of the ideas for this work initially came from my Sonata for Solo Guitar. I was intending to simply arrange a section for trio, for some friends looking for repertoire. Needless to say, I wrote it for Carla in the end....(who could ask for anything, or anyone, more...!)
However, as so often happens, ideas take on a life of their own; demanding new structures, new responses to the unbidden questions and stirrings of my deeper psyche, let alone the growing sense of despair which has come to characterise this late stage of my life. (Lord, let it not be for the remainder of my natural term of life).
As such, and needless to say, this work came into being almost organically; which is not surprising, being an organic kind of guy.
Composed: -17th March - 27th May 2021
Trio for Flute, Guitar & Cello
The first Note 'C'... ~15:00
Available from Wirripang Publishing
ISMN: 9790673149281
Some of the ideas for this work initially came from my Sonata for Solo Guitar. I was intending to simply arrange a section for trio, for some friends looking for repertoire. Needless to say, I wrote it for Carla in the end....(who could ask for anything, or anyone, more...!)
However, as so often happens, ideas take on a life of their own; demanding new structures, new responses to the unbidden questions and stirrings of my deeper psyche, let alone the growing sense of despair which has come to characterise this late stage of my life. (Lord, let it not be for the remainder of my natural term of life).
As such, and needless to say, this work came into being almost organically; which is not surprising, being an organic kind of guy.
Composed: -17th March - 27th May 2021
Trio for Flute/alto, Cello & Piano
The Waiting Room (Just passing through) ~13:30
ISCM: 9790673149298
Dedicated to that force of nature and enlightenment, Vicki Brooke,
the doer of many things at Gretel Farm in The Northern Realms!
Oh dear, am I delving too far into my past!? The Waiting Room was originally part of a ballet score I composed for Kaitai Chan and The One Extra Dance Company, sometime in the early 80's. (I tried find any information about it, but it seems to have been lost to the sands of time.... oblivion without a trace!)
Initially composed for clarinet (Linsey Pollak), cello (Paul Orban), and myself on piano, I have come back to it now, almost 40 years later, as this section often haunted me. Although it was very simple, I didn't have the ability back then to develop and do justice to the original idea.
This was a dance scene where a patient was being dragged across the floor by a nurse, as they began entering the death process. There you go, and so too are we not all just 'passing through!?" Best not to be holding on too hard!
Reflection
In the process of rehearsing Arafura Haze (flute, viola & harp) I spoke to Alice (Giles, our harpist) and told her about The Waiting Room, which I had for quite a while thought would lend itself to having a harp just as easily as a piano.
I then said I was thinking of substituting the normal flute for an alto (Carla had earlier this year finally bought one) when Alice suggested also substituting a cello, instead of a viola. A good idea I thought, and put it aside, ......until I realised we needed a work for our end-of-year concert at Gretel Farm up North. (Blessed be Vickie Brooke, who keeps giving to the world and organising!!) We were performing with Katherine Hopkins on cello...and the rest is history!
Trio -Flute/alto, Cello, Piano & bell
O Virtus Sapiente ~7:00
Based on a chant by blessed Hildegarde von Bingen
ISCM: 979-0-9022753-3-0
Carla, Robert Harris and I were going to present a concert up North at Vicki Brookes's Gretel Farm, and we needed repertoire. I thought of arranging something by Hildegarde von Bingen, (or was it Rob who suggested it?) The moving finger of time has moved on, but, due to availabilities, we are now doing it with Allie Osborne, as a fund-raiser for travel expenses for The Last Violin screenings in Cyprus and Greece!
What to say; it is a simple contemporary setting which includes open, jazz-like improvisatory sections -as may, or may not have occurred over the intervening centuries.... But hey, I am not looking for historical justification or precedent; it is what it is. So be it!
You power of Wisdom, that circled circling,
embracing all in a course that is filled with life-
you have three wings:
one soars into the heights,
another has moisture from the earth,
All praise to you, as is your due, o Wisdom.
O Virtus Sapientie, que circuiens circuisti,
comprehendendo omnia in una via que habet vitam,
tres alas habens:
quarum una in altum volat,
et altera de terra sudat,
et tercia undique volat.
Laus tibi sit, sicut te decet, o Sapientia
Composed 21st March - 31st July 2023 Byron Bay.
First (and only!) performance: 30th Nov. 2025
Trio -Flute/alto, Cello, Piano & bell
O Vis Eternitatis ~9:00
-based on chant by blessed Hildegarde von Bingen
ISCM: 9790673149298
And so the wheel turned, and Carla and I were presenting another concert up North at Gretel Farm, and we needed repertoire. Based on the success, (and pleasure and ease) of the last arrangement (O Virtus Sapientie, which we played with Allie O.) it was time to do another one! This year we are performing with Katherine Hopkins, a cellist who, as fate would have it, lives near us in these fabled Northern Realms!
The program we were presenting, called From Bach to the Birds... included La Merle Noir (Messiaen), , and Il Gardellino (Vivaldi). It was noted, 'we don't have any Australian birds' - ouch! ... so now, the cello sings the Koel bird, with her short upwards glissandi. (If needing guidance, just listen late Spring and Summer, early in the late afternoon or very early mornings....
What to say; it is a simple contemporary setting which includes open, jazz-like improvisatory sections -as may, or may not have occurred over the intervening centuries.... But hey, I am not looking for historical justification or precedent; it is what it is!
Oh power of eternity
who have ordered all things in your heart:
by your word all things are created
as you have willed,
and your word itself
puts on flesh
in the form
that is drawn from Adam.
And so those garments
are wiped clean
by great pain.
Trio for Flute, Viola & Piano
Mirni Dan (Peaceful Day) ~13:30
ISMN: 979-0-720090-97-9
During one of my visits to Linsey P. at Kin Kin, I sketched out some simple ideas for a piece for us to play ... I wanted them to be very calm, very peaceful; I called it Mirni Dan. I think we read through it once, maybe played it at one of the concerts we would put on together in the local Kin Kin School of the Arts Hall. This was in post Paranormal days. Then forgotten for a long time. When I took it up again, some time in 2021, I developed it a lot, and then decided to add the Allegro groove (6/4 -2/4). Carla and I read through some of the earlier versions before it became a Trio.
13th Nov, 2022 - decided to add viola (flute and piano is too much like, well, .... a duo for flute and piano, if you get my drift!?). I had been thinking for a while to add Vla, D. bass and perc (incl vibes) anyway, but for simplicity's sake, I just stick to this version as a Trio. Done. Enough. When I get around to it, I'll finish the version for just flute and piano -or not; who cares, and what does it matter.
London St, Enmore, Sydney -27th Nov, 2022
Original sketch: ~15th Dec, 1993
Reworked/developed: 26th Oct, 2021 - 29th Nov, 2022
Trio for F. horn, viola & D. bass
The Stride ~2:45
ISMN: 979-0-9022753-5-4 (not yet with Wirri)
Fuck knows I am digging deeply into the ancient past. As far as I can remember, I wrote this sometime in 1977, before I joined the Queensland Theatre Orchestra full-time, for my dearest friend Mathias (Macio) Rogala-Koczorowski (Horn). I then rewrote/finished it for him when I started playing with the Theatre Orchestra full-time in 1978. (Ah, the soccer games we used to play down in the park!)
A simple piece with a couple of simple ideas; were anyone to want to perform it, I would probably want to do some work on it and develop it further, maybe adding an impro section, or a cello, etc ... but then again, maybe not: sometimes good to let it be what it is!
And in the end… Thanks to my old friend Macio from those days long gone bye, when he would kindly, and even gladly play any of my rather simple and student-ish early works; and hey, then also to my brother Rudolf for the artwork that graces not only this volume, but those of the last more than thirty years or so.
Romano Crivici
-Byron Bay, Australia
27th Dec, 2023
Original idea/sketch: 11th Dec. 1977
Rewrite: 19th - 21st June, 1978
Trans/Dev.: 27th Dec, 2023
Trios for Flute, Violin & Viola Slavic Grooves & Meditations
ISMN: 979-0-720090-34-4
This is the second incarnation of Slavic Grooves and Meditations, a re-working of a set of ideas I originally wrote in duo form for Carla and myself. Having organised (well, it was actually Robert Harris) a small tour in Europe for the Elektra Collektive (violin and viola) playing my Reflections on Life, Death, and Transience in 2014, what better way to create more variety, both in form and colour in the program than to add viola to the Slav Duos.
This allowed, of course, for many more possibilities than that afforded by duo, so, they are now quite different from the original duos, as well as some new movements altogether. Tempted as I am to say that the next incarnation (for quintet) is the 'final' version, they are all complete, and dare I say perfect in their own unique ways,
Given that some of the original "Duo" movements were conceived, and performed with percussion, these 'Trios' will actually end up as "Quartets", (when I get around to it) with the inclusion of percussion. As a concession to the straighter classical world, they can however be played quite effectively, without, (that is if you want to present a limp, boring as shit 'classical' trio concert....... yawn, fidget......... discretely check your mobile in your lap..... yawn.... polite clap............. Well, let's be frank, who will perform any of these pieces anyway.
Sunday 24th September, 2017 London
Well, yes, but I think I was probably depressed and despairing at the time; these pieces do work incredibly well, now that I think of it ...and our performances of them in Europe always went down to great acclaim and appreciation!?
Monday, 30th May, 2022 -London St, Enmore (Sydney!)