Solace for chamber orchestra, opus 7 (1981)
Solace was written in March 1981 for performance by the University of Queensland Orchestra where I was then a student. They gave its premiere at the opening concert of the Musicological Society of Australia Conference in Brisbane that year. Subsequent performances include the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and the King’s College London Orchestra. The work was subsequently revised and a new edition prepared in early 2021.
The work is scored for chamber orchestra and is a sustained and lyrical work where the musical material slowly expands from a four note Phrygian motif heard at the opening in divisi cellos. It gradually reaches a point of great density and chromatic dissonance and then retracts to modal stillness again. The title of the work, and the experience it embodies, refers to gamelan music heard from a distance as if in a calming dream providing solace.
© Andrew Schultz, 2021.
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