In the late 1970’s and through the 1980’s I had a career as a recorder player. I played a lot of early music, but I also performed many concerts as a new music soloist. I developed repertoire at that point by writing and commissioning new pieces. I do get a fair amount of requests for scores of the music I’ve written for recorder, so I’ve decided to make the scores of some of these pieces available.

RSRCH 12/84

Is one of a series of works I wrote in the 1980’s exploring the musical/technical problems on the recorder. Premiered at New Music Concerts, Toronto January 1985.

RSRCH 4/83

RSRCH 4-83 is one of a continuing series of solo instrumental pieces that each deal with a different aspect of new instrumental technique or style. RSRCH 4-83 uses an electronic delay system as well as the performer’s vice to create a rich texture of overtones.

(recording from BREAKDOWN NEW MUSIC FOR RECORDER)

GENERIC MUSIC

For recorder and keyboard
Generic music - program note from CBC Recordings MVCD1055 Regarding Starlight.

'Vancouver’s PETER HANNAN is what we have come to call a "composer-performer". In modern parlance, that simply means that he writes much of the music that he plays. Of course, so did Liszt and Paganini. Liszt and Paganini played instruments that were considered modern in their time, but Peter Hannan plays an instrument that was more common in the eighteenth century: therecorder. Hannan is well-trained in the Baroque tradition and frequently performs and records both old and new music. However, he has developed the technique of his instrument beyond anything necessary for playing Vivaldi and Telemann. His Generic Music (1983), is so named because Hannan set out to write a work that could be played by a combination of virtually any melody instrument and any keyboard instrument. Generic Music is an "open form" work in which the performers are free to choose how the material is used and repeated. Hannan says that the music involves a "certain degree of technical difficulty for the players". He is a master of understatement. Peter Hannan is joined in this work by his frequent collaborator, Toronto harpsichordist Colin Tilney. Tilney was well-known as a harpsichord virtuoso long before leaving his native England for Canada. Like Hannan, he is a master of an eigtiteenth-century instrument who delights in extending its possibilities to rival the most modem electronic marvels.'

Generic Music

WINDOWS

for recorder and keyboard was written in 1988. Premiered at Internationale week voor 20ste Eeuse Blokfluitmuziek, Amsterdam October 1988. Windows contrasts musical material generated by computer with material composed in the more traditional sense. The general melodic style and heterophonic relationship between the instruments was inspired by 14th century French music, especially that of Machaut.

Windows

(recording from BREAKDOWN NEW MUSIC FOR RECORDER)

BREAKDOWN

for recorder and computer controlled synths. BREAKDOWN was originally conceived as a work for chamber
ensemble, and was composed for the Arraymusic ensemble in 1985. In
1986, the work was rearranged as a piece for solo instrumentalist with computer controlled synthesizers. The title has many possible connotations, musical and otherwise.

(recording from SRI 001 BREAKDOWN NEW MUSIC FOR RECORDER)

RAVEN HIGHWAY

for solo recorder with electronic processing and soundtrack was commissioned by Ijsbreker, Amsterdam, in 1998. Premiered by Peter Hannan at the Ijsbreker, Amsterdam, July 6, 1998 at the 2de Internationale Blokfluit Week.
The raven is the trickster of west coast North American native mythology. This work is about the urban world of the now in my part of the world in relationship to the echoes of the natural and spirit world of the then.

Raven Highway