Weave (2015)
for solo piano
Afrikosmos Volume 4: No 10
Dedicated to Michael and Sheryl Sandler
Composed July 2015, Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio
Publisher: Bardic Edition
Available from Goodmusic Publishing
Score BDE 1284 (Volume 4 Complete)
Duration: 2'20"
Recording
Recorded by Antony Gray on 'Michael Blake: Afrikosmos’ (Divine Art DA 21374)
Première
First performance: 21 August 2021; Le Genesteix Concerts, Azat-le-Ris, France;
Antony Gray piano
Programme note
Weave consists of old and some new mbira variations from my 1976 harpsichord piece ‘Ground Weave’, music for a television documentary on traditional weaving. This was one of the earliest South African art music compositions based on mbira music, and in the decades that followed a number of other South African composers – Kevin Volans, Martin Scherzinger, Rüdiger Meyer, David Kosviner and others – explored this tradition. The mbira tradition was to South African composers, what the
gamelan had been to French composers in the early years of the 20th century. Inventive pianists (or harpsichordists) can extend the piece by making their own variations.
for solo piano
Afrikosmos Volume 4: No 10
Dedicated to Michael and Sheryl Sandler
Composed July 2015, Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio
Publisher: Bardic Edition
Available from Goodmusic Publishing
Score BDE 1284 (Volume 4 Complete)
Duration: 2'20"
Recording
Recorded by Antony Gray on 'Michael Blake: Afrikosmos’ (Divine Art DA 21374)
Première
First performance: 21 August 2021; Le Genesteix Concerts, Azat-le-Ris, France;
Antony Gray piano
Programme note
Weave consists of old and some new mbira variations from my 1976 harpsichord piece ‘Ground Weave’, music for a television documentary on traditional weaving. This was one of the earliest South African art music compositions based on mbira music, and in the decades that followed a number of other South African composers – Kevin Volans, Martin Scherzinger, Rüdiger Meyer, David Kosviner and others – explored this tradition. The mbira tradition was to South African composers, what the
gamelan had been to French composers in the early years of the 20th century. Inventive pianists (or harpsichordists) can extend the piece by making their own variations.
