Elegy to the men you don’t meet ev’ryday

Programme notes

In 2002, Singapore lost two of its most respected art doyens and educators, sculptor John McNally and dramaturge Kuo Pao Kun. McNally originated from Ireland and Kuo Pao Kun from China. This elegy pays tribute to the uniqueness of these two extraordinary personalities. McNally founded LASALLE College of the Arts, where Casteels worked as Head of Music then Dean of the Faculty of Performing Arts. The main inspiration for this composition is the loud, exacerbated music associated with Chinese funerals, the Gregorian mass and the old Irish ballad I'm the man you don’t meet ev’ryday. The composition is based on the numeral four, which in the Cantonese dialect, sounds similar to the word for “death”. Numerology permeates the entire structure of the piece as well as the number of musicians. The glass wind chimes refer to McNally’s predilection for glass and wood in his sculptures. The bronze bell refers to Taoist rites. In western music, trombones have long been associated with funeral music. At the end the sound of sand rustling through the geophone aims to convey a sense of timelessness. The first performance took place in 2002 in the Victoria Concert Hall, Singapore. 

Jiří Heger (1946–2023), friend of the composer, played the quinton for the premiere of Elegy.  Heger was a Czech violist, soloist, and music pedagogue. He played 32 years with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra including 26 years at the first viola stand. He taught at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory in Singapore. Heger inspired the creation of a new musical instrument called the quinton—a five-string viola with an added violin E-string, built for him in 1987 by luthier Tomáš Pilař.

Completion of the composition 

1-XI-2002

Recording

link is the audio of the premiere

see page 40 of the black cover logbook #2

Quote 

"The dynamic sound world of Elegy includes an impression of Chinese funeral music, painted using atonal musical language". 

Lee Shin-Kang, Singapore