Description
For free-bass accordion
Instrumentation: accordion solo
Year: (2008/09)
Duration: approx. 15′
Commissioned by Stefan Hussong through a Canada Council grant. Dedicated to this most inspiring musician. “and the end is the beginning” is the eleventh piece in the Voices in Time cycle. Since 1979, Hope Lee has been studying Chinese music, medieval and classical poetry, in particular the ideology, philosophy and notation of guqin (Chinese 7-string zither) music. The knowledge absorbed and material collected have integrated and become an important part of her creative voice and to-date, ten pieces have been completed in a projected eleven-piece cycle, with each reflecting on a particular time in Chinese history which in turn, echoes our own existence.
“Hope Lee’s spiritually inspired, highly gestural style is featured in the unaccompanied solo ‘and the end is the beginning’. Here, the accordion’s extended resources are on display: pitch bending, bellows shaking and other titillating accordion exotica. The work trace the emergence of entire soundworlds from a single, sustained pitch — a process the composer repeats in a consistently fascinating variety of ways.” (Nic Gotham in The Whole Note”)
