Matthew Rowan - Composer

2005 --
for solo oboe

The four movements of In The Presence Of Absence each explore the notion of giving presence to that which is absent, structured primarily on rhythms derived from words expressed as Morse code. Even though the main inspiration for this composition was the response I had while attending the funeral of a family member, the notion behind In The Presence Of Absence was observed in the works of artist Rachel Whiteread; in particular her 1993 Turner Prize winning piece House, which was a full scale inner cast of a Victorian terraced house that serves to focus on the history of activity within that property. As in most of Whiteread’s works she brings attention to what is intangible by solidifying the space in or around an object; in In The Presence Of Absence, each movement deals with this idea, albeit in an abstract way, using different compositional techniques. The first movement has an initial set of pitches that gradually expand in range; the second movement uses the Harmonic series to suggest a fundamental pitch; the third movement elaborates on the concept of the previous movement by drawing from pitches made possible through pitch axis theory; and the fourth movement relies on extended instrumental technique, especially multiphonics, to make the absence of a pitch present. Originally each movement had the same Morse code-based structure but as In The Presence Of Absence progresses this structure disintegrates: the first movement has a rigid structure with rhythmic motifs that were constructed from the notated translation of Morse code encoded words, while the final movement of the composition is devoid of rigidity and perceivable related material