19 May Secret Arnold

3 3 3 3 / 4 3 3 1 / timp 3 perc / str [5’54″] 1999.

Commissioner: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra
Funder: Creative New Zealand
Premiere: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra with conductor Samuel Wong, Auckland Town Hall, New Zealand, May 5, 1999.
Program note:

In his Second String Quartet op.10, Schoenberg stepped outside the four corners of the quartet and created a sublime part for soprano. In the last movement she sings ‘I feel air from other planets’. Just as Schoenberg opened a door for classical music with his Second String Quartet, Jamaican dub started the sampling and scratching scene which grooved all the way to 90’s Bristol. Clive Randy Chin’s “Easy Come Dub” is a stripped down remix of The Wailers’ “It Won’t Come Easy”. In “Only You” from 1997, the Bristol-based band Portishead create an ambient space in which even the “Inspector Clouseau” theme finds a new identity. Compressing time and space, Secret Arnold finds room for all three — Schoenberg, Randy and Portishead.