Rethinking Malcolm Arnold’s Variations on a Ukrainian Folk Song (1944): a pianist’s perspective on its contemporary relevance (in englischer Sprache).
Malcolm Arnold’s music and life story are somewhat contradictory. His art is seemingly buoyant and light-hearted, with a musical language reflecting his love of jazz and melody, and a large output of more than 100 film scores, as well as symphonies, chamber music and works for the stage, yet his life was marked by periods of mental collapse, extreme mood swings and alcohol dependency. He was a committed pacifist and conscientious objector, but by 1944 he felt compelled to enlist for military service.
Arnold’s Variations on a Ukrainian Folk Song consists of a theme and 10 variations, which range in character from bold and brilliant, to lyrical, to light-hearted, to menacing and militaristic. In Arnold’s hands, the Variations form is non-linear, with sudden and unexpected changes revealing a rich myriad of states. Through postmodern strategies such as fragmentation, rupture, discontinuity and pluralism, the music can be understood as a site for the processing of war, memory, trauma, and nostalgia, which is as relevant today as it was during the Second World War.
In this lecture performance, Arabella Teniswood-Harvey will explore the contemporary relevance of Arnold’s music and share insights gleaned through her artistic research.
Dr Arabella Teniswood-Harvey is Head of Discipline (Music) at the School of Creative Arts and Media. Current interests include music and visual culture, music and identity, and new modes of performance including virtual creativity. Her recordings with Australian label Move, have been critically acclaimed in forums including Gramophone magazine.
Arabella holds degrees in music, art history and education, and her scholarly work is recognised internationally. Her PhD thesis (2006) explored the impact of music on James McNeill Whistler’s art, and she maintains an interest in this field. Her research has been published in Music in Art: International Journal for Music Iconography, The British Art Journal, The Burlington Magazine, Psychology of Music, Context: Journal of Music Research and Virtual Creativity (forthcoming). She has presented at conferences in the USA, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand; and given lecture-recitals in the USA and UK, using solo performance to illuminate her discussion and analysis of visual art.
Arabella’s recorded output includes the solo piano albums The Ring of Bone: The Piano Music of Elisabeth Lutyens (MD 3354) and Carpe Diem: Piano Music from Italy (MD 3410); the duo albums with Edwin Paling, Lennox Berkeley: Complete Music for Violin and Piano, and Solo Violin (MD 3361) and Kenneth Leighton: Music for Violin and Piano (MD 3358); Patañjali (MD 3399) in which she performs piano, keyboard and trumpet alongside the composer Michael Kieran Harvey and percussionist Eugene Ughetti; and PRTZL (MD 3447) in which she performs experimental music with Michael Kieran Harvey and Clocked Out (Vanessa Tomlinson and Erik Griswold).
