for solo violin

Patricia Pollett asked me to write her a solo piece when we were both in residence at the Mount Buller Summer School for Strings in 1990. Four years later I completed Enyato II, dedicated to Patricia, who gave the first performance at a Perihelion concert in Brisbane in 1994.

Whereas my earlier Maninya series – which culminated in the violin concerto Maninyas (1988) – is largely made up of monolithic chants and dances whose rhythms and textures have their origin in the sound patterns of nature, the four works which bear the generic title Enyato are essentially dualistic; the word enyato means “contrast”. In Enyato II two vastly dissimilar movements are aligned: the first an introspective adagio; the second a pulsating maninya (dance/chant) with my usual cross-cultural allusions. This movement is also known as White Cockatoo Spirit Dance and can be performed on its own. It also exists as a transposed version for violin.

Enyato II was commissioned by Tall Poppies Records with assistance from the Australia Council.