ACRID LINES (2015)

for Wind Orchestra

​

World Premiere [as de Volharding Ensemble]

RNCM New Ensemble | Clark Rundell (cond)

27th January 2015

​

World Premiere [as Wind Orchestra]

RNCM Wind Orchestra | Matt Weites (cond)

28th January 2016

Duration

6'00''

Acrid Lines (2015) was originally commissioned by the Royal Northern College of Music for performance at their 2015 Gerald Barry Festival. In its original form, the work was orchestrated for the same forces as Orkest de Volharding, the Dutch new music ensemble founded in 1972 by composer Louis Andriessen and saxophonist Willem Breuker, which consisted of flute, three saxophones, three trumpets, three trombones, piano and upright bass. Acrid Lines is an intense, hard-hitting work in which the fierce material heard throughout is continuously blurred, obscured and disturbed by forceful, bitter doublings, surging to a fervent, potent conclusion. Acrid Lines is constantly writhing with itself, with aggressive, forceful material battling viciously for supremacy. Each element is doggedly persistent, adding to a ‘brutalist’ rather than brutal outcome. The material in Acrid Lines is busy, heavyweight, and continuously punctuated by blunt accents - what melodic material is heard is constantly pounded from every side.