Stepping Out
Stepping Out is a short, ‘up-front’ kind of piece, commissioned specially for the Royal Northern College of Music String Orchestra’s premiere London concert at the Barbican Centre in November 1996.
The piece is based on a short repetitive pattern, heard at the outset, which dominates the music. A second idea, featuring solo strings, is more chromatic and contrapuntal although the basic rhythmic pattern still underpins it. The music gradually loses energy and stops. It starts again, this time a tri-tone away from the opening pitch of A, but then explodes into a wild fugue before the opening returns with a …
Read MoreConcerto for Piano and Wind (Homages)
The concerto was commissioned by Berkshire Young Musicians Trust in 1995. The sub-title of the concerto – Homages – is a tribute to the various twentieth century composers whose piano concertos I so admired when I was young (and still do!), particularly Stravinsky, Bartok, Rachmaninov and Poulenc. My intention was to write a concerto which would be taxing but accessible. The instrumentation of the concerto is identical to the Stravinsky Piano Concerto of 1924, with the addition of a soprano saxophone.
The work is in three movements: fast – slow – fast. The first, Toccata, contrasts two main ideas: …
Read MoreClarinet Concerto
My Clarinet Concerto was commissioned by the BBC and was completed in 1994. It was first performed by Michael Collins (for whom the work was specially written) with the BBC Philharmonic, conducted by Adrian Leaper, at the BBC Concert Hall, Manchester.
The work is in two parts and lasts for about 30 minutes. It is scored for large symphony orchestra, without clarinets except for a bass clarinet, which plays an important role in ‘shadowing’ the soloist. Part One opens with the solo clarinet in a cadenza-like introduction, gradually joined by the orchestra, in which most of the main material of …
Read MoreThe Sword and the Crown (orchestral version)
In 1992 I was commissioned by BBC Radio 2 and the Central Band of the Royal Air Force (RAF) to make a new version of this work for orchestra and wind band, specially for the RAF Annual Concert at the Royal Festival Hall, London. In this version it was broadcast on BBC Radio 2, but not commercially recorded. The lushness of added strings certainly adds a different dimension to the slow and reflective music in the work.
For a full programme note, please see the original version for Symphonic Wind Band.
This version of the work for orchestra and wind …
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