Crepuscule

Crepuscule, or twilight, is a time of day that has long fascinated me. An in-between world of neither day nor night; a world charged with metaphor. It is a time best experienced away from urban lights. A transient period, when light fades or increases perceptibly; each time you look up, the light has changed. It is the sped-up spring and autumn of the day. At dusk, in a place without artificial light, clarity gives way to ambiguity. A faint object is comprehensible only if it has been perceived in the earlier light. The abstract ambiguity of shapes and tones invites the imagination to do its worst; shapes uncouple from their daylight significance and can represent anything. Dusk can be an unnerving time in the wilds. The world becomes monochrome, the ground darkens, but the sky remains luminous until the blanket of night is fully drawn over. 

This piece is a response to my feelings about the twilight world, in particular when wild camping in remote places on the english coast. The piece is unashamedly influenced by american composer Morton Feldman and incorporates two fragments of music borrowed from two pieces that have always, for me, evoked a twilight world: the opening flute melody from Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and the opening ‘Tristan chord’ from Wagner’s Prelude to Tristan and Isolde.