Composed: 2016
Premiered: 2016, Halifax
Duration: 13 minutes

Polyphonic (adj.) – many-voiced [music] composed of relatively independent melodic lines or parts.

Lively (adj.) – full of vigour.

While browsing through a library book of very vibrant artwork by Paul Klee, the 20th-century Swiss-German master, I was struck by the title of one of the paintings: Polyphonic Lively. Though the two adjectives back-to-back suggest something might have been lost in translation, I felt compelled to turn these vivid and evocative words into music. They immediately conjured up high-vibration, high-intensity “chatter”, and also seemed nicely suited to the celebratory nature of an orchestra’s season opener.

Music, as a communicative medium, offers unique and wonderful opportunities for stacking contrasting ideas – for “polyphony”. As a composer, I like to explore the possibility that musical voices, each conveying an idea that is either supportive or subversive, can be allowed to coexist in a way that often eludes us in today’s world. The nature of Polyphonic Lively is character-driven and, through sharp turns and decisive action, its “journey” is simply what the characters make of it. Its musical fabric is a multiplicity of voices, lines, and themes that decide – on a whim – when to coalesce and coexist.

Program note by Dinuk Wijeratne