Sheet Music
Stephen Binnington
Spring 2004
Title: Conversations à Trois for Flute, Oboe and Bb Clarinet
Composer: Luna Alcalay
Publisher: Edition HH
Price: £22.50 (score and parts)
Level: Advanced
With no biographical details contained in the score, I turned to the internet to discover that Luna Alcalay was born in Zagreb in 1928 and studied the piano and composition at the Vienna Academy of Music. She is the first woman composer to have had a documentation of her work in the Austrian National Library (2000). She describes her approach to music, tradition and work methods, as ‘nonconformist’. Composed in 1991, Conversations à trois is a challenging, 12-minute, avant-garde work in which the instruments chatter and relate to each other through similar melodic and/or rhythmic devices. Contrasts of tempo and dynamic add to the colour. Some of the music is quite thickly scored, but for a highly competent ensemble, it is a piece worth considering. Each individual part is printed with a reduced-size, running cue which will prove helpful during rehearsals.
Stephen Binnington
We are grateful to the proprietor of Sheet Music for permission to reproduce this review.
