Surface Patterns by Jonathan Nangle

“Surface Patterns” is an EP of the solo piano piece “Surface Patterns” and the Irish language song cycle “Snáth” for soprano and piano, performed by the American soprano Abigail LaDuke and the Irish/Hungarian pianist Ella Nagy. The music represented here offers a snapshot of a period of composition (2019/2020), with both pieces composed back to back.

“Surface Patterns” is the first of several pieces that seek to evoke natural phenomena through notated music. Initially inspired by the nodal patterns of Chladni figures, the scope widened to include other surface patterns, such as those created by wind and rain on the surface of water and sand.

“Jonathan Nangle’s new Surface Patterns for solo piano […] created entrancing spray-like patterns in which you could almost imagine individual droplets being lifted and carried by the wind.” – Michael Dervan, The Irish Times

The Irish language song cycle “Snáth” was commissioned as part of the Irish Language Art Song Project, a collection of fifty new art songs set exclusively to Irish language texts. The project is the brainchild of Dáirine Ní Mheadhra and John Hess. Fifty new songs were commissioned in 2019 from 12 Irish composers and 5 international composers.
These scores and accompanying learning aids are available free of charge via the Contemporary Music Centre Ireland website.

https://www.cmc.ie/AmhrainEalaineGhaeilge

The three poems in this song cycle are threaded through with the voice of one protagonist calling out to another. Nuala Ní Chonchúir’s ‘Snáth’, the central piece in the set, uses Ariadne’s thread, guiding Theseus towards the light from the depths of the labyrinth, as an allegory for the fog of depression.

Opening the collection Colm Breathnach’s ‘An Croí (dom Mham)’, sees the protagonist calling out to his mother as the blackness envelopes them, síordhubh níos duibhe ná dubh (everblack blackest black).

The final piece, Michael Davitt’s ‘Chugat’ (Towards You), ends with the soprano repeating the opening lines of the poem, ná fan rófhada liom (don’t wait for me too long) as she gradually makes her way off-stage, her words gradually fading into the distance, leaving the piano to wash over the audience in sober thoughtfulness.

“Jonathan Nangle’s cycle, Snáth (‘Yarn’), [was] tranquil and at ease. The opening of the second song, also called ‘Snáth’, created a beautiful link between words and music, with a wandering, lost piano ostinato over the words, ‘Is mise / d’Ariadne’ (‘Let me be / Your Ariadne’), which is led by the end, gently, tenderly, to a place of calm.” – Brendan Finan, The Journal of Music

https://soundcloud.com/jnangle
https://www.cmc.ie/composers/jonathan-nangle

Jonathan Nangle is a composer whose work explores many diverse fields ranging from notated acoustic and electro-acoustic composition, through live and spatially distributed electronics, to video, field recording, interactive sound installation and electronic improvisation.

cmc.ie
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