The Works has been described by Curran as not having been created by will and direct purpose, but rather as a “providential accident”. Combining piano and voice with found sound – recordings of cows munching grass, the Rome-Florence express train, a horse-fly caught against a window pane, the composer’s footsteps, cicadas, an Amsterdam calliope, a tin can being kicked, etc. – and a custom-built Serge modular synthesizer, it is a slowly developing composition where space and ambient tapes are eventually overtaken by raga-esque chanting and frenetic piano playing, and where synthesizer washes become full-on workouts all leading to a coda where the listener is “finally carried off on the wheels of the Berlin U-Bahn.” Truly stunning from start to finish, the long wait for a reissue of The Works on the format for which it was conceived has finally come to a close.
