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Listen: Serenata Notturna

As the title suggests, my Serenata Notturna evokes the atmosphere of night music. Following a reflective opening where the pitch development outlines a twelve-note series, the music gradually becomes more agitated, developing in to a kind of danse macabre, eventually reaching a powerful climax. The music then subsides into a much more tranquil atmosphere and the previous dissonant material transposes itself into a simple melody (like a lullaby), uttered by the violin, the outline of which, both melodically and in terms of the accompaniment figuration, has already been present in the piece from the beginning. Thus the turmoil of the first part of the work becomes transfigured into something much more peaceful - hence the quotation at the beginning of the score: out of darkness cometh light.

After finishing the work, it became apparent to me that it might become the sketch for the slow movement of a Violin Concerto which I had just begun working on. It did indeed form the basis of that slow movement and the concerto was premiered by Lyn Fletcher and the Hall Orchestra, conducted by Kent Nagano, at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, in February 2000.

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