The Four Seasons (after Cy Twombly), 2009
for solo piano, commissioned by Marilyn Nonken with the generous assistance of the Ian Potter Cultural Trust. Premiered Feb 2009, Musica Nova Helsinki, duration: 30 minutes.
1. Autumn
2. Winter
3. Spring
4. Summer (Sema)
I spent time at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in January 2007 and was very inspired by the works by Cy Twombly on display, in particular, the massive four-panelled work ‘Quattro Stagioni’. The combination of ecstatic saturated colour, linear calligraphic dynamism and and paint washes veiling poetic commentaries scrawled on canvas, gave me many ideas for a piano cycle in four parts. These ‘seasons’ are seasons of an inner life – they are made up of ‘climates of feeling’ – weather patterns that are sometimes extravagantly baroque in expression or shot through with an elegaic sense of the passage of time opening out to a ceremonial dance: a ‘Sema’ or the Sufi’s meditative whirling dance of union.
The Four Seasons (after Cy Twombly) is dedicated to Marilyn Nonken. Summer (Sema) celebrates the birth of her daughter Goldie.
– Liza Lim, 2009
See link for recording
See link to Guardian article by Jonathan Jones on Cy Twombly’s ‘Quattro Stagione’
