The musical compositions of Richard Burdick
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Opus 184

Five Crystalline Miniatures
for Horn Cello and Bass

Opus 184a

Five Crystalline Miniatures
for clarinet, horn and 'cello

Premiere of my "Five Crystalline Miniatures" for Horn Cello and Bass, opus 184" at the Regina Symphony Orchestra's new music concert January 19th 2012

This work is in five short movements:

1: Introduction: At the bus station (music from a dream)
2: Allegro (I ching scales 5 & 25 v.2)
3: Star light (based on a graphic spiral pattern)
4: Impetuoso - madly; wildly (based on a graphic triangle pattern)
5: Accelerando (based on a graphic star pattern)

Each new work takes me closer to my ability to write music that I love, i am not interested in writing music that sounds like anything else that has been written, nor am I interested if my music sound like someone else's. Composing for me is a precess of self exploration.

Some of the most important changes I have made recently are:

1) Recognizing that I like to see the overall picture before I write a piece; the form,

2) I like visual associations to my music

3) I like working in free flowing forms, and I have been very happy to uncover my work "Mind without Matter" for seven players which I wrote in 1979; my freshman year at college.

Buy the sheet music  (complete score & parts)  from MusicNeo   ($60)
               Buy the printable Sheet music via Paypal from this site ($50)

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Movement 2 sample:

Movement 3 sample:

Movement 4 sample:

Movement 5 sample:

I have images associated with this work:

I. Introductioni - at the bus station (music from a dream).

II: Allegro (I ching scales 5 & 25 v.2)

III: Star light (based on a graphic spiral pattern)

IV: Impetuoso - madly; wildly (based on a graphic triangle pattern)

V: Accelerando (based on a graphic star pattern)

The program from the premiere:

http://www.verbnews.com/arts.html NO LONGER (and not in the wayback machine)

Thanks to Alex MacPherson for this nice pre-concert interview!

Concert Celebrates New Canadian Compositions Alex J MacPherson

(Photo: Cheryl McKay of Cheryl Jacqueline Photography)

Regina, SK — If you thought classical music was the exclusive property of mouldering old Germans, long-dead spectres of 19th Century Romanticism, think again.

To highlight new Canadian classical music, the Regina Symphony Orchestra is staging a concert, an ode to the best and brightest new music featuring a new composition from Richard Burdick, the RSO's principal horn player.

"The piece I'm working on is for the French horn," says Burdick.

"It's billed as a horn solo, but it's really a trio for French horn, cello and string bass."

The piece, an eight-minute trio titled "Five Crystalline Miniatures," is still in gestation, but Burdick says he isn't worried.

Bach was notorious for reworking his compositions, he explains, and constant revision inevitably produces better music.

Composing is, at best, a difficult business; Burdick began dabbling in it after exhausting the supply of locally-available scores — even avant-garde horn music from Europe.

"I didn't know that this was not normal," he laughs.

Burdick's voracious appetite for new and interesting music eventually drove him to compose his own pieces.
"I was 14 when I wrote my first piece," he says.

"I realized there were not enough horn duets, but I wanted more to play with [a] friend."

And while he considers composing a hobby, Burdick's studiousness highlights his commitment to the art.

He composes longhand in a book with 11-by-17-inch pages. Half the pages contain the score, the other half detailed notes on his thought process and the theoretical foundations of the work.

"I think a lot about the theory," he says.

"Lots of theory. A ton of theory."

Balancing emotional impact against the rudiments of theory can be confounding.

Even simple compositions are built on a fiendishly complex theoretical base, but finding that balance is critical: without a strong intellectual and emotional framework technical virtuosity is meaningless.

And for Burdick, that balance is achieved through spurts of frantic creativity.

"Those inspired moments," he says, "that's where the real art is."

On the other hand, he laughs, "Mozart and Beethoven and Haydn — I know they did really well with deadlines."

Performance, however, is the ultimate test of any composition, and Burdick hopes his piece will rekindle interest in contemporary classical music and drive audiences to explore the wealth of music available today.

"I would hope that people start wanting more," he says.

"I would hope people want to ask where is the cutting edge, what is that?"

RSO New Creations Where: Government House When: Jan 19, 2012 Cost: $24.50 (www.admission.com)