sequenza v
The sequenza v is notorious for being one of the most diffucult pieces in the repatoire. My collegue suz who has left a post above has a much better knowlege of the history and probably of the piece as a whole than i have. I studied the piece while at the RCM (although it was for a presentation not a performance) and used the Christian Lindburg recording which is awsome. (as you would expect).
The piece as you know is in two parts. Massive use of multiphonics and theatrical moves makes the piece almost impossible to perform with the music, (its supposed to be memorised anyway) and the plunger is used to tap the bell rhymically while you play and sing. the fact that it is graphically scored also makes it diffucult to initially "break its back".
The guys to talk to if you want a real expert advice on this stuff is The guy at Huddersfireld uni Barry Webb, or of course John Kenny.
While i was in Portugal with the Remix Ensemble, which is a contemporary music ensmeble, i was going to perforn this piece for a recital. I found that unfortunatily the 1 month i had to prepare was no'where near enough to learn it thouroughly. The five years till 2008 may be just enough if i start right now!!!
If you want to be broken gently into this sort of stuff try Basta by Raby or Maybe Doolallynastics by my good friend and gentlemen Brian Lynn. The latter is a belter and the former is more on the contemporary side. Neither is graphically scored which is a distinct bonus for speed learning!!
Hope this is of some help.
