Lesbia Waltz
Opus 15
piano piece
Tetrad Press 1972
first performed by Jill Phillips at Greenwich Theatre 1972
recorded by JP (Words & Music Editions Hansjörg Mayer 1975)
recorded by Lydia Doumancich (Intervalles 1978)
recorded by The Composers Ensemble (Largo 1997)
Listen to audio in the notes below
1. Lesbia Waltz op. 15a (orchestrated by John Woolrich 1992) performed by The Composers Ensemble at St Silas Church, London 1993
2. Lesbia Waltz op 15 performed by Andrew Ball, piano, at St Silas Church, London 1993
Taken from the artist's statement
Lesbia Waltz is a pure example of a structuralist critique applied to a piece of music. It has been frequently performed, in the early nineties (in a very eccentric 'normalised' and romantic rendering) by Barry Douglas in Belfast, and in June 2001 by the Ensemble Modern at Berlin's Konzerthaus. The Composers Ensemble under John Woolrich have prepared a version for chamber group.
The title Lesbia Waltz is no more my own than the notes are: those who have ploughed through Smallwood's Piano Tutor will recognise the piece as the culmination of that course. Every repeated or recapitulated bar is shifted to the point of its first appearance so that my Opus 15 is, so to speak, Lesbia Waltz ordered and arranged as if by a filing clerk.