ALL IN GREEN MY LOVE WENT RIDING

Oboe & Piano

CHICKEN REEL STOMP

Violin, Viola, Cello, Double Bass & Piano

HOVER

Clarinet & Piano

ON SUCH A NIGHT AS THIS IS!

Violin, Viola, Cello, Double Bass & Piano

CHINA BEACH REVISTED

Double Bass & Piano

SOFTLY & GENTLY

Horn & Piano

ADORNI DI CANTO

Flute, Clarinet, Viola, Cello & Piano

COYOTE STAR SONG

Violin, Cello & Piano

KITHARŌDIA

Violin, Viola, Cello & Piano

PASSAME, POR DIOS BARQUERRO

Flute, Viola & Harp

...

ALL IN GREEN MY LOVE WENT RIDING

Instrumentation: Oboe & Piano
Duration: 4’
First Performance: June 2008, the Limes, Julian West and David Knotts

Commissioned by Susanna Graham-Jones

CHICKEN REEL STOMP

Instrumentation: Violin, Viola, Cello, Double Bass & Piano
Duration: 3’
First Performance: 2008, the Wigmore Hall, the Schubert Ensemble

HOVER

Instrumentation: Clarinet & Piano
Duration: 5’
First Performance: August 2007, St, Andrew’s Church, Presteigne, Catriona Scott and Huw Watkins

Commissioned by the 2007 Presteigne Festival

PROGRAMME NOTE
When I was asked to write a piece for the Presteigne festival, I was immediately drawn to composing music which expressed something of the drama and beauty of the Welsh countryside. The word ‘hover’ describes not only a bird poised between movement and stillness but is also the collective noun for trout. I imagined a solitary bird, remote and distant and far below, a gleaming ‘hover’ of trout moving through dark waters.

Hover is not a piece for clarinet with piano accompaniment but much more a duo where the two instrumentalists ‘hover’ round one another. The piece is dedicated to the Welsh composer, Gareth Walters.

ON SUCH A NIGHT AS THIS IS!

Instrumentation: Violin, Viola, Cello, Double Bass & Piano.
Duration: 12’
First Performance: February 2007, the Purcell Room, the Schubert Ensemble at a concert to celebrate the birthday of Howard Skempton

Commissioned with funds from the Schubert Ensemble Trust

PROGRAMME NOTE
I - Miss Roberta Paul’s Boat Song
II – Night Herding Song
III – “Don’t Bring Gobhlachans into the House!”

Given the fishy nature of Schubert’s Trout quintet and the fact that two members of the Schubert Ensemble work with animals (Peter with bees and Douglas with cattle) I was keen to write something inspired by animals. Taking my cue from the beautiful set of song variations at the heart of Schubert’s quintet, each movement in this work is a based on a different song.

In my hunt for a song about bees, I came across a boat song recorded by Miss Roberta Paul in Georgia, America 1926. It’s a hypnotic litany song about losing Mama’s ring and rowing a bee:

I know how to row the boat,
I can row the boat just so,
finger ring, the finger ring.
I can row the boat just so,
finger ring, the finger ring.
I can row,
I can row the bumble bee,
I can row,
I know how to row the bee,
I know how to row the bee,
bumble bee, the bumble bee.

The second movement, a homage to Douglas’ farming, was inspired by a famous cowboy tune and the last movement is an insecty romp based on a song I keep meaning to write – there’s also a little quote from Joseph M. Daly’s 1910 hit, Chicken Reel.

CHINA BEACH REVISITED

Instrumentation: Double Bass & Piano
Duration: 4’
First Performance: November 2006, Peter Buckoke, Beijing International Double Bass Festival

PROGRAMME NOTE
During a trip to the USA in 1998, I went on a visit to China Beach, a small cove located in one of San Francisco’s ritzy seacliff neighbourhoods. The trip wasn’t all I’d expected – by the time we arrived, a thick, chilly fog smothered the bay and I could hear the drone of fog horns out at sea. My memories of that trip were also haunted by Jobim’s song, the Girl from Ipanema. The track was playing on the car radio and when we stopped for a coffee, the same song was playing on a CD in the café. It felt like the girl was following us around. I also remember driving back through the fog, stopping at endless train tracks to let trains pass, blowing their whistles as they went. American train whistles blow in perfect fouths producing a much more harmonious sound than the British ones.

DOLORATO

Instrumentation: Harp
Duration: 6.5’
First performance: June 2003, Wilton’s Music Hall, Patrizia Meier

PROGRAMME NOTE
A fantasia on Vulgo Dolorato, a gagliarda from Besard’s Thesaurus Harmonicus.
Dolorato grew out of a piece commissioned by the Spitalfields Festival celebrating the silk-weaving of the Huguenot immigrants who settled in London in the seventeenth century. I was keen to find some music which this refugee population might have been familiar with and came across a beautiful galliard in Besard’s European collection, Thesaurus Harmonicus, with the enigmatic title, Vulgo Dolorato which translates as common sorrow.
This fantasia takes the form of a series of variations. The original galliard is alluded to in the harmony of the opening music for high strings and progressively comes into focus as the piece progresses, peeling away layer by layer until Vulgo Dolorato is heard.

SOFTLY AND GENTLY

Instrumentation: Horn & Piano
Duration: 10’
First Performance: 28th October 2000, Richard Watkins and Andrew West

Commissioned by Britten Estate to celebrate the re-opening of Aldeburgh’s Jubilee Hall

PROGRAMME NOTE
I ended up writing this piece on a piano which I had not played since I was 4 or 5. Because we didn’t have a piano at home, I spent a lot of time at our neighbours’ house, Jean and Irene. I remember tinkling around, standing up so that I could reach the pedals.
When I found myself some twenty years later at the same piano, a lot had changed. I could reach the pedals without having to stand up; Irene was dead; jean was in a nursing home dying of cancer.

I saw Jean while I was writing the piece and I spent many hours in her empty house at her piano. To be surrounded by so many things which reminded me of my early childhood became the very substance of the piece: the particular feel of the piano; the smell of the house; the sound of the sea from the patio doors. Things which had seemed so insignificant more than twenty tears ago were now loaded with meaning and resonance. The house would be sold and the piano would disappear.

The piece is a cradle song for Jean to rock her softly and gently to sleep. When I saw her, she was very tired and thin, a shadow of her former self. She died a week after the piece was finished. Softly and Gently is dedicated to her.

ADORNI DI CANTO

Instrumentation: Flute, Clarinet, Viola, Cello & Piano
Duration: 6’
First Performance: June 1999, the Composer’s Ensemble, conducted by Peter Wiegold

Commissioned by the 1999 Brighton Festival

COYOTE STAR SONG

Instrumentation: Violin, Cello & Piano.
Duration: 2.15’
First Performance: June 1999, the Wigmore Hall.
Commissioned by Judy Blendis for the Schubert Ensemble’s Chamber Music 2000 scheme

To purchase, go to www.chambermusic2000.com
Recording available on A White Room on the NMC label

A SEA-GREEN PARTRIDGE OF APRIL

Instrumentation: Oboe
Duration: 4’
First Performance: 17th September 1999, St Nicholas’ Chruch, Deptford. Performed by Julian West with sculpture by Victoria Rance and choreography by Clare Whistler
Part of the 1999 DeptfordX Festival

KITHARŌDIA

Instrumentation: Violin, Viola, Cello and Piano
Duration: 12’
First Performance: March 1998, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Schubert Ensemble
Commissioned by the Schubert Ensemble Trust

PROGRAMME NOTE
Competitions were held in ancient Greece in which musicians would sing whilst accompanying themselves on the five-stringed harp, the kithara. This piece begins with an evocation of the sound of the ancient harp which accompanies the string instruments who play increasingly elaborate, song-like melodies. While I was was working on Kitharōdia, Michael Tippett died. I wrote violin and viola duet at the end of the piece for him and imagined Tippett dancing off into the distance.

WASHED AMONG THE STARS

Instrumentation: Clarinet & Piano
Duration: 8’
First Performance: November 1996, the Wigmore Hall, Andrew Webster and Suzanne Cheetham

Commissioned by South East Arts

PASSAME POR DIOS BARQUERRO

Instrumentation: Flute, Viola & Harp
Duration: 10’
First Performance: 1996, the Gate Theatre, London

Commissioned by the Gate Theatre for a production of the Spanish Boat Plays

…AND FALL AND RISE, AND FALL AND RISE AGAIN…

Instrumentation: Oboe & Piano
Duration: 10’
First Performance: June 1995, St Magnus Cathedral, Orkney, Nicholas Daniel and Julius Drake
Part of the 1995 St Magnus Festival

CARILLON

Instrumentation: Organ
Duration: 4’

RECREATION

Instrumentation: Bassoon & Piano
Duration: 4’
First Performance: October 1992, St Catherine’s College, Cambridge, Catherine Maguire and David Knotts

NOCTURNES FOR THE KING OF NAPLES

Instrumentation: Flute & Piano
Duration: 10’
First Performance: March 1994, British Music Information Centre, Anna Pope & David Knotts