for 17 instruments: 1(+picc).1(+c.a).1(+Eb).1, 1.1.1, timp, perc(1), strings (0.0.3.3.2)

Commissioned by Bangor New Music Festival and first performed by Orchestra of the Swan, David Curtis (cond.), Bangor, 14 March 2014

Come, sisters, cheer we up his sprites,

And show the best of our delights:

I’ll charm the air to give a sound,

While you perform your antic round:

That this great king may kindly say,

Our duties did his welcome pay

– First Witch, Macbeth, Act IV Scene 1

According to Albert Braunmuller, the ‘antic round’ that the witch mentions in Shakespeare’s Macbeth refers to ‘a macabre version of a Jacobean courtly entertainment’. Although the three movements of my ‘Antic Rounds’ may share some of this spirit in places, the title came about because much of the music was constructed from canons or ‘rounds’. These rounds are sometimes complex, sometimes simple; sometimes audible, sometimes heavily concealed; sometimes a momentary alignment, sometimes forming the backbone of whole sections of music.