header nedmcgowan.com
"... the rhythmical quicksilver of Ned McGowan's Urban Turban." - Guido van Oorschot, Volkskrant

ios duo

(1999)


Flute and clarinet

Two soprano instruments
 

Duration: 12'



The Ios Duo was a result of explorations at the time (1999) into various different musical areas, namely non-western performance practices, microtonality, acoustical phenomena and rhythm.

Throughout the work I have exploited opposites such as expressiveness and science, chaos and order, unison and intervals, precise notation and indeterminate gestures. The flute and clarinet are often in mirror image of each other, blending their sounds as closely as possible.

Changes in speed motivically reoccur throughout within shakes, beating of close pitches and in rhythmic timing. The entire piece is microtonal, incorporating glissandos within various quartertone systems. This results in different acoustical phenomena via close intervals, particularly difference tones and beating effects.

The form of the Ios Duo is in two parts: slow and fast. The first part incorporates the non-western performance practices of shakes and glissandos, particularly influenced by how they are used in South India. Differing from vibrato, shakes are reoccurring throughout and are exactly notated. In the case of the flute, the instrument is simply shaken with the right hand. On clarinet the shake is produced by a combination of breath pulses and embouchure movements.

The second section begins with a canon that leads to a rhythmic development. Throughout there are many interval games such as rising chromatic lines between the two voices, parallel motions in different intervals and glissandos to and from unisons.


Flutist and composer Ned McGowan’s … Ios Duo , which among other things explores bends of pitches within close intervals between the pair, as well as gentle cross-rhythms and melodies suffused with microtonal inflections.
- FANFARE: Michael Cameronth, 2000
  





Flute and clarinet:
Score available from Donemus Publishing








First Performance: The Badcuyp, Amsterdam, June 17

Available on New Dialects. Order here directly via PayPal.