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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2019
The music of British-Albanian composer Thomas Simaku (b. 1958) bears the hallmarks of both his formative training and working life in Albania, and the widening of musical palette that came with his move to the UK in 1991. In this article the music from the late 1990s to the present day is considered, with particular attention to more recent works. An overview of some stylistic and technical aspects of this music is offered through analytical observations centred on three dualities: simplicity and complexity, the individual and the group, and stasis and movement. This wide-ranging account aims to open the door for further scholarship around this rich and multifaceted music.
1 Frances Wilson, ‘Meet the Artist – Thomas Simaku, composer’, The Cross-Eyed Pianist, https://crosseyedpianist.com/2019/02/14/meet-the-artist-thomas-simaku-composer/, 2019.
2 Wilson, ‘Meet the Artist’.
3 Wilson, ‘Meet the Artist’.
4 Colin Clarke, ‘Review: Voci Celesti (String Quartet No. 3); Due Sotto-Voci per Violino Solo; Soliloquy I (For Violin Solo); Soliloquy II (For Cello Solo); Soliloquy III (For Viola Solo); Radius (String Quartet No. 2) by Simaku, Kreutzer Quartet’, TEMPO, Vol. 63, No. 249 (2009), pp. 98–9.
5 Wilson, ‘Meet the Artist’.
6 Wilson, ‘Meet the Artist’.
7 Wilson, ‘Meet the Artist’.
8 All dates are the year in which the work was completed as provided by the composer.
9 ‘Press release: BASCA announces 2009 British Composer Awards winners’, at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/newmusic/britishcomposerawards/2009/bcawinners.pdf, accessed 1 May 2019.
10 The golden section comes here or at the lunga pause that immediately follows this chord, depending whether one measures written beats or performed time, and is probably the result of deliberate formal planning.
11 This work was commissioned to mark the centenary of Debussy's death, and Simaku – alongside other commissioned composers – was asked to begin the piece with a quote from one of Debussy's works before continuing in his own style.
12 Footnote in Simaku, Thomas, L'image oubliée d'après Debussy (York: University of York Music Press, 2018), p. 4Google Scholar.
13 Clarke, ‘Review’.
14 See Kaczyński, Tadeusz, Conversations with Witold Lutoslawski, trans. May, Yolanta (London: Chester, 1984), pp. 38–40Google Scholar.
