Browse Works
Additional Information
1. Romance
2. Nocturne
3. Sapphic Ode
4. Llandaff
The Serenade includes extended arrangements of three pieces composed while an undergraduate student at the University of Hull. The song-like first movement was composed for piano in January 1970; the Nocturne, also for piano, was composed in January 1971. The last movement was for a mixed ensemble and it prompted an arrangement of all three movements for a mixed instrumental sextet. The sextet was reworked and its musical material expanded for orchestra in 2023The Nocturne is largely through-composed and makes much of the rhythm of its first bar. The Sapphic Ode is based on a setting I made in 1985 of Sappho’s poem Φαίνεται μοι κῆνος ἴσος θέοισιν, in which I tried to represent both the pitch accents and the quantitative metre of the Greek verse. It is scored for oboe, harp and strings.The finale consists of variations on a Welsh song ‘Llandaff’, which was collected by Kate Lee from Mr Edge, gardener, Wells, Norfolk, November 1897, and published in Journal of the Folk-Song Society, 1:1 (1899), 16. (ROUD#1718)
Instrumentation
3.3.3.2. – 4.2.3.1. – Timps + perc. (Glockenspiel, Tubular Bellas, Cymbals, Snare Drum, Bass Drum) – Harp – Str.
Duration 11 mins, 34 secs.