I think one of the wonderful things about this composition
is the way you've responded to the Museum
by saying there is the museum itself
which is a place of doing history and kind of encountering history.
There are things like the collections which are the remnants of other people's lives
that we can perhaps link with
but then your own personal history and musical history.
I think one of the movements also is a tribute to a Beethoven piece,
an engagement with a Beethoven piece.
Yes, exactly.
It's going back in history and connecting to Europe.
Seeing us as a whole world, not just this country
but the connections from where also the people came
and the culture from which - obviously my ideas stem from European music.
Because you emigrated to Australia in 1975, is that correct?
Exactly, from the former Soviet Union.
I studied in Moscow.
I obviously brought a lot of that influence -
not just Beethoven because that's obviously Viennese and German culture
but also very Russian culture.
My music obviously sounds a lot like Tchaikovsky
because that's what I was really brought up on - my nourishment at home.
It's so interesting to me that the National Museum
would be a place that elicits that from you again
and brings that up again in a different form.
I tried not to do - it's not just about me obviously
all of my pieces of course have a lot of me this in them.
But this was a commission from the National Museum
and I needed to see how I can make this piece
not sound Russian for example, but sound kind of global.
The first movement also has didgeridoo in it
and the last movement also has didgeridoo in it,
it's called 'Evolving'.
The last movement was to do with how life continues,
how history still goes on.
In the end we have actually a song -
we had William Barton sing it and play the didgeridoo.
(Plays the piano and William Barton sings)
The piece went at the end -
it's not kind of finishing at all, it continues.
We never wanted it to end.
I remember we kind of didn't know how to end it because
it continued and William kept singing and singing
and it just kind of with the cello -
(music plays)
evolved into nothing.
Like history and life itself.
And then continue again the piece
the very beginning the first movement started like this.
(plays the piano)
The one that then went into a Beethoven -
There are six movements altogether
and they all have to do with this place
and what it connects and collects and what it holds
and what it's going to hold.
I think you look forward into the future.
Elena, you come back today
we are lucky to have you back at the Museum again
to perform two particular movements,
which is the one about the convict love tokens
and the one about the Kimberley points.
I think the love tokens one is so interesting
because there is sound in there
that is perhaps slightly not a literal kind of interpretation
but more a direct reference to how those objects were made by convicts,
stippling pennies with a metallic hammer
and a thing to put little messages on them.
I know there's a sound in there
that is more exactly perhaps your imagination of that process.
Yes, that's actually the first thing I wrote of the whole piece.
I thought I'll start with the stencilling -
you call stippling I call stencilling.
That is because I'm a curator and you're a musician.
My words, my terminology is not there.
Something that you will remind you of the metal
in the hitting with a kind of instrument of some sort - hammer or something.
I thought what would that be in the orchestra?
It could be many things - it could be an anvil?
But an anvil funnily enough doesn't sound like that.
It sounds a little bit too high
and not quite presenting that metallic hard sound.
In the end I used the xylophone - and very high
because when it is very high it loses its wooden kind of sound,
it becomes more metal.
On the piano it also sounds quite nice when it's really high so it started like this
(plays the piano)
and then I added something on top of that.
(plays the piano)
So together it will be -
(plays the piano)
(orchestra plays)
(plays the piano) - it's kind of hard to do it together,
usually it's two different people playing.
Then while it has some kind of playful character
because I believe that's where the idea of the convict to do that.
It was quite playful,
even though it must have been very hard.
I am saying not the actual activity was playful,
but the thought that maybe it would be nice -
playful may be the wrong word.
It's actually kind of a longing for something
but not making it very sad, you know
because I could have written it in the minor key
I could have done this -
(plays the piano)
It would have been just trying to extract a tear.
I don't believe in those things.
I don't do that.
I believe to stand back and just imagine first of all the activity itself.
It sounds less playful when it's not just piano
(orchestra plays)
The next thing I thought I will bring romance into this -
(plays the piano)
It is with strings.
It's kind of longing for a love.
The tokens that people left behind with their loved ones
when they came out to Australia.
They put the messages of love onto those tiny coins.
I don't know how they did it.
It must have been so small.
They had time on their hands.
It's not so big - (plays the piano)
I guess subconsciously you go for certain texture which is not very epic
because we are thinking that small.
A coin - again another thing
when you look at the coin it's quite round even though not perfectly round.
There are different shapes.
This is like a circular - (plays the piano)
For me it's a circular movement - a triad, a chord - it goes like this -
If I would have done this (plays the piano)
that would not be like that.
We are going back - (play the piano)
that's another thing that was kind of in my mind.
Even though not quite consciously
I am just thinking about how did it come about?
Elena, that's the end of my questions, I think.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
No, but thank you for asking me all these great questions
and for inviting me here because it's very special.
It's really great.