12 May Trellis

alto sax, bass clarinet + ‘cello [15’] 1999.

Commissioner: Mark Storey
Funder: Creative New Zealand
Premiere: 175 East, Hopetoun Alpha, Auckland, New Zealand, May 9, 1999.
Program note:

Three things:

1. Listening to Othello, drifting in and out of sleep, I hear Iago warn his master, ‘Beware my lord of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster; cruelly aye it doth mock the meat it feeds on, and with its poison doth change our nature.’

2. A dislocated groove repeatedly interrupts  a seduction in the ‘Earth, Wind and Fire’ song Can’t Hide Love.

3. Trellis: what my sweet peas climb up each summer. It’s loosely woven together from strips of wood – named after the light-textured Roman fabric trilicius, ‘woven with three threads’.