no time (at all)

Brian FERNEYHOUGH
Born 1943, Coventry, England

no time (at all) (2004)

guitar, guitar
Published by Edition Peters

no time (at all) began as a `winding down project' immediately after the completion of my opera Shadowtime. I had been asked by several guitarists to make some of the material from Les Froissements des Ailes de Gabriel (Shadowtime Scene 2) available in solo form. Whilst finding that somewhat problematic, I thought that a duo work which cannibalized materials from both the solo and ensemble guitar parts might perhaps work. In the event, I found myself modifying, elaborating and re-ordering in a sort of musical sleight of hand. New materials were added when card sharping skills were judged to be useful; in that sense, the work stands close to some of the more wittily arcane keyboard pieces of Frescobaldi, in which nothing is really as it seems.

As in the parent work, the second guitar is played in scordatura throughout, with all six strings tuned a quarter-tone lower.

'no time (at all)' is dedicated to Magnus ANDERSSON, Mats SCHEIDEGGER and Geoffrey MORRIS. Deal a new hand and let the game begin!

Programme note © Brian FERNEYHOUGH