COMPOSER Paul Dean had resolved that his latest piece of music would be bright and positive after his first three works had been inspired by such bleak events as his father's Alzheimer's affliction and the sinking of the SIEV X refugee boat in which more than 350 people drowned.
But this year's disastrous global events intervened while he was living in Melbourne, where he had moved alone to become director of the Australian National Academy of Music while his family remained in Brisbane until the end of the school year.
"News of such disasters as the earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan and the English riots replaced my usual routine of having breakfast with my family," Dean, who is composer in residence at Port Fairy Spring Music Festival this weekend, said.
"It became incredibly intense and started to mess with my head.''
The result is Converging Spheres, which he will take to Port Fairy this weekend.
The five movements of the 15-minute piece have such titles as Massacre in Norway, Edge of Hell and Anarchy.
"I set out with thoughts of sunshine but it has ended up the darkest of my four pieces," he said.
The idea for the work came out of conversations he had with Seraphim Trio's pianist Anna Goldsworthy about how to partner the program's main work, Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time.
"It is one of the pivotal pieces of the 20th century, in the same way as (Stravinsky's) Rite of Spring and the Bartok quartets,'' Dean said.
"But it is daunting trying to work out what to play with it. For me, the ideal pairing would be silence before and after."
Goldsworthy, who formed the trio in 1994 with violinist Helen Ayres and cellist Timothy Nankervis, said the work change d the perception of time for musicians and the audience.
"Messiaen uses markings I have never seen before," Goldsworthy said. "It is a very profound piece that almost reinvents what beauty is.''
Messiaen composed it in a German prisoner of war camp in 1941 for the only available instruments.
"It combines elements of the natural world in birdsong and Messiaen's mystical religious sense, " Goldsworthy said.
It will be performed on Sunday in Port Fairy , where Goldsworthy is artistic director, with a lighting scheme following Messiaen's instructions according to how he saw each movement.
The work is a popular item on concert programs, with Dean scheduled to perform it on a national tour with the Australian Chamber Orchestra next year.
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