• Stuart Greenbaum
  • 800 Million Heartbeats (2007)
    (for piano trio)

  • Wise Music G. Schirmer Australia Pty Ltd (World)
  • pf/vn.vc
  • 8 min

Programme Note

 

Many living creatures lives apparently last for around 800 million heartbeats. Birds like the hummingbird have a very rapid wing motion - so fast that it becomes a blur. It also has a corresponding fast heart rate and lives a shorter (and arguably more intense) life. By contrast, the sloth has a very slow heart rate, is given to much sleep and has a relatively long life. If humans had only 800 million heartbeats in a life, we would die young (probably in our twenties). But the actual figure is only nominal. It becomes a heightened metaphor for life, measured in heartbeats, and the journey that fill its course. This piece was originally composed in 2000 for the Southbank Contemporary Music Ensemble, then as a quintet for Brisbane quintet, Topology, and this adaptation was made especially for the Yarra Trio to premiere in 2008.

 

Media

Stuart Greenbaum 800 Million Heartbeats

Reviews

"Science and geography for a compatible union in this music by Australian composer Stuart Greenbaum performed by New Zealand musicians Justine Cormack (violin), Ashley Brown (cello) and Sarah Watkins (piano). The title track sets the scene as NZTrio make a gentle passage through rhythmical patterns representing various life pulses, including the estimated 800, 000 heartbeats in the lifespan of a hummingbird. Humans need many more for a long life, Greenbaum notes. This is an ingenious exercise linking musical form with cosmic realities...These mystical heartbeats are mesmerising."

 

Patricia Kelly, Brisbane Courier Mail
7th September 2013

Greenbaum's 800 Million Heartbeats was the more straightforward piece, with its well judged proportions and obvious build towards a climactic theme statement at just the right moment. There is little angst in Greenbaum's music, but this melody sung with passionate intensity before ebbing away to a conclusion. This produced one of the trio's best moments, the richly expressive string playing both supported and driven by the keyboard dynamic.

 

 

Mark Viggiani, Resonate
September 2009

Discography

800 Million Heartbeats

800 Million Heartbeats
  • Label
    ABC Classics
  • Catalogue Number
    ABC4810594
  • Ensemble
    NZ Trio
  • Released
    2013