Instrumentation
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"Ian Davidson's solo performance of Córdoba is breathtaking!" according to Catherine Pagan of the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities. Ian Davidson has performed "Córdoba" around the world, including in Brazil, Slovakia, and Hong Kong and released the work on a new CD. The work has also been performed by Davidson in Hawaii and Texas, Alecia Lawyer in Houston, Ryan Zwahlen of the Vientos Trio in Los Angeles, and Holly Somers in Cleveland. The third movement has been performed separately under the title "Walls" by Heather Baxter in a New Music Hartford concert.
INSTRUMENTATION
Solo Oboe
DURATION
6 minutes
DATE
2004
US PREMIERE
9 March 2006
College Music Society/ NACUSA-TX Conference
Texas State University
San Marcos, TX
Ian Davidson, oboe
INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE
23 May, 2006
Guest Master Artist Recital
State Conservatory of Music
Bratislava, Slovakia
Ian Davidson, oboe
Additional international performances in Teresina, Brazil (8/16/2006) and Hong Kong (3/9/2007).
AWARDS
2006 NACUSA-TX Composition Competition
2005 Mu Phi Epsion Composition Content
(Postgraduate Division, short work category)
RECORDING
High Wood
Wild Basin Winds Label (purchase • iTunes)
Ian Davidson, oboe
The recording that is live on this site is of a performance by Holly Somers
Kulas Hall
Cleveland Institute of Music
DEMONSTRATION SCORES & RECORDINGS
Please contact the composer.
Listen to the Work:
Mvmt. I (Lorca's Canción de jinete)
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Mvmt. II (Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner)
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Mvmt. III (Cavafy's Walls)
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Each movement is marked with a reference to a different, but similarly themed, poem. The first movement references Lorca’s poem, Canción de jinete, as translated by Susana Cavallo; this is also the origin of the title, Córdoba. The second movement makes reference to Samuel Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The final movement references C.P. Cavafy’s Walls, as translated by Elena Spilioti (with the collaboration of George Zorbas and Chris Burke). To the best of my knowledge, these texts have never been grouped together before, separated as they are by time, country, and language. Yet their juxtaposition may strike the listener as surprisingly natural. The poems are drawn together here by their common literary themes, their shared observations of a human nature which transcends nationalist boundaries, and by the embodiment of human isolation in the pathos of a solo oboe.
TEXTS
I: Lorca's Canción de jinete (trans. Susana Cavallo)
Ay! That death should await me
before I reach Córdoba.
Córdoba.
Far-off and alone.
II: Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head,
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread
III: CP Cavafy's Córdoba (trans. Elena Spilioti, in collaboration with George Zorbas & Chris Burke)
With no care, no pity, no shame
Walls they built all around me, high, thick walls.
…Alas, while the walls were rising, how could I not have noticed.
But I never heard a builder hammering, nor any noise.
I never sensed it when they sealed me off from the world out there.
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