Poison | Poisson for Two Harpsichords (2017/2018)

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This work was composed as a potential entry for the 2017 Colchester New Music Call for Scores hosted by the the Knights-Tidhar harpsichord duo, and fueled by my ongoing interest in writing contemporary music for period instruments.

 

Poison|Poisson (translated: Poison|Fish), is an abstract evocation of what occurs when two french words that have similar sounds but if not careful, could represent the wrong thing. Are you asking for poison? or for food?.

Also, the title hints at the types of harpsichord the pieces were written for. The "Poison" represented a single manual harpsichord GG-d''' compass with 2x8' stops, and "Poisson" represented a double-manual harpsichord of FF-f''' compass with 2 x 8′, 1 x 4’ stops.