Movement for Jane

Notes

This compact work, lasting all of 90 seconds, represents a turning point for Keenan. It marks a breaking of his writer’s block whilst also forming something of a kernel for a much larger project – specifically the closing sections of Palimpsest. In that larger work, we first hear this music played by the live ensemble (clarinet, violin, ’cello, piano and vibraphone) in Part III. This moves us into the coda of the piece, which takes a recording of Movement for Jane (in its first version), manipulating and embellishing it as part of the electronics, which in turn then accompany the soprano and trombone.

The second version, taking the instrumentation of Messiaen’s Quatour pour la fin du temps, correlates almost directly with the instrumental passage in Palimpsest, with the vibraphone music being easily taken on by the piano. This almost certainly sowed the seed for the later work Cloudscapes, again for Messiaen’s ensemble, which builds on various sections from parts I and III of Palimpsest.