Savoy Trifle was written for Alea New Music Ensemble and premiered at our inaugural concert on my birthday in 1988. It comes from a period when I was exploring collage and quotation and different ways of integrating and juxtaposing diverse materials. In this case those materials were Be-bop Saxophonist Charlie Parker's (1920-55) Klaun Stance and Viennese Expressionist Alban Berg's (1885-1935) Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano Opus 5. Savoy Trifle derives its structure from the improvised saxophone leadline of Parker's piece. The pitches of the leadline are a constant throughout the work, and serve as the basis for a compositional improvisation liberally scattered with remarkably post-be-bop passages from Berg's 1913 pieces.
Sketches for Savoy Trifle show the evolution of the title from Savoy Artefact ('Savoy' was Parker's record label), Savoy Truffles (after the Beatles song 'Savoy Truffle') and finally in very faint pencil, Savoy Trifle. The score was subtitled with a quote from the same Beatles song: 'you'll have to have them all pulled out', which still turns out to be good advice for the performers.
First Performed: Alea New Music Ensemble September 11 1988 Callaway Music Auditorium Perth
credits
from separate islands: chamber music I [1988-1991],
released October 26, 2012
Magnetic Pig: Lindsay Vickery (saxophone), Iain Grandage (cello), Paul Tanner (vibraphone) and Cathie Travers (Piano).
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