A Noise Did RiseChamber Works 1993-1999
Jonathan Dawe has emerged as an exciting and original composer of the 21st century. His music, described as “skillful”, “sparkling” (New York Times) and “envelope-pushing” (Boston Globe) embodies a striking mix of modernist nuance and baroque imagery, spanning grand orchestral forces to delicate chamber music combinations. His works are energetic, rich, yet sharp and transparent.
Commissions include The Flowering Arts for The Boston Symphony Orchestra with James Levine, Prometheus an opera in three act opera for Works & Process at The Guggenheim Museum, Piano Concerto for Robert Taub and The Wharton Center for Performing Arts, Ciphers and Constellations for The Miró Quartet, and Orlando Furioso, a miniature opera for The Second Instrumental Unit. Dawe has also composed works for the Brentano String Quartet, Cygnus Ensemble, The New Juilliard Ensemble, The New York New Music Ensemble, The New York Miniaturist Ensemble, The Manhattan School of Music, Phoenix Ensemble, and the Institute for Advanced Study.
From the liner notes:
Horn Trio, a single-movement work, systematically presents and re-presents its musical ideas. In the drama of this work, new levels of structure are created as older previous material is reinforced through pitch, and rhythmic instrumental doublings, fashioning the foundation for off-shoot melodies. These new filigrees, always derived from the music ‘beneath’ them, then, in turn, become the stable platform for still fresher recursions. The first original structures thus becoming deep pillars of design. The beginning material from which the Horn Trio builds its dynamic design comes from a comes from a restructuring of the twelve-tone series in Karlheinz Stockhausen’s early work, Sonatine for violin and piano (1951).
"Excellent performances."
- American Record Review