Fourth Estate

Commissioned by Zubin Kanga.Premiered Melbourne Recital Centre, 8 May 2015 by Zubin Kanga.Performed by Kanga in Sydney and Perth, May 2015. Broadcast on ABC Classic fm.Dan Thorpe, ABC Adelaide, as part of SoundStream Emerging Composers Forum, 2016. Podcast here. Gabriella Smart at Extended Play, City Recital Hall, Sydney, September 2018 and The Intensity of Light, Foundation IHOS, Amsterdam 2018." the instrumentation emerges as an elegant metaphor for the ‘unofficial’ yet powerful voices of various media outlets, pulling the stunningly-scored cascading ripples of piano off-course into a sonic landscape outside the one it usually occupies" Lisa MacKinney, Limelight Magazine. "Like a Debussy Prelude flowing across the different registers of the piano..." Mathew Lorenson,Realtime,125 September15.The Fourth Estate is a societal, political or institutional force whose influence is not officially recognised, and is a term often used to refer to the press. It’s original use relates to the three estates of the realm: clergy, nobility and commoners. Australia in particular has seen just how powerful ‘unofficail’ voices can be, through monopolisation of the media, editorialised media reporting and political bias. The Fourth Estate is a work that compares the sonoric qualities of the piano with those of small electronic devices that extend and contrast with it. Small voices that have the ability to change everything. As the Fourth Estate is thought to be an element of society ‘outside’ official recognition, here the electronics attempt to pull the piano into a different sound world outside its usual realm. An example of the score is on the right. To perform this work you will need the Decibel Score player. Each iteration of the score materials is unique and requires the score player to do this. A digital or hard copy of the score is available from Material Press.

本作品由祖宾·坎加（Zubin Kanga）委约，于2015年5月8日在墨尔本演奏中心由祖宾·坎加完成首演。2015年5月，坎加先后在悉尼与珀斯完成该作品的巡演演出。该作品曾于ABC Classic fm电台播出。2016年，澳大利亚广播公司阿德莱德分部的丹·索普（Dan Thorpe）将其纳入SoundStream新锐作曲家论坛展演单元。相关播客链接见此处。2018年9月，加布里埃拉·斯马特（Gabriella Smart）在悉尼城市演奏中心举办的“Extended Play”演出中演绎该作品，同年还在阿姆斯特丹IHOS基金会主办的“The Intensity of Light”活动中完成展演。

利萨·麦金尼（Lisa MacKinney）在《Limelight Magazine》中评价道："该作品的配器手法堪称精妙隐喻，映射出各类媒体‘非官方’却极具影响力的发声力量，将经精巧编配的钢琴级联涟漪般的音响带出其惯常的音声疆域，步入全新的声景之中。"
马修·洛伦森（Mathew Lorenson）在《Realtime》第125期（2015年9月15日）中如此评述："仿若德彪西前奏曲在钢琴的不同音域间流转穿行。"

“第四等级（Fourth Estate）”指未被官方认可却拥有强大影响力的社会、政治或制度力量，该术语常被用于指代新闻媒体，其本源含义与欧洲封建时期的社会三等级——教士、贵族与平民密切相关。澳大利亚因媒体垄断、社论化报道与政治偏见等现象，尽显“非官方”发声的巨大潜能。《第四等级》这部作品将钢琴的音响特质与可拓展并形成对比的小型电子设备进行比对，借以展现那些足以改变一切的微弱之声。正如“第四等级”被视作官方认知之外的社会要素，本作品中的电子音响也试图将钢琴牵引至其惯常音域之外的全新声境之中。

右侧附有该作品的乐谱示例。演奏该作品需使用Decibel Score player（分贝乐谱播放器），每一次的乐谱素材演绎均为独一无二的创作，因此必须借助该播放器完成。乐谱的数字版与实体版均可通过Material Press获取。