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Lost Landscapes

This work was commissioned by the Hebrides Ensemble (http://www.hebridesensemble.org.uk/) to go alongside the Septet Op.20 of Beethoven and was performed in Perth and Edinburgh on January 30 and February 2 2012. The instrumentation is clarinet (bass clarinet), bassoon, horn, violin, viola, cello, contrabass (5-string).

The technical research of the piece concerns the use of an organic principle governing material that none the less consists of contrapuntal lines with their own independent rhythmic and harmonic integrities. This could be seen as a sort of development of the micropolyphony used by György Ligeti, though the intention is to create not one polyphonic mass but a multi-dimensional melodic ‘panorama’ where the listener may focus on different, identifiable strands of the polyphony: in this sense it is more like the polyphony of Mahler, but in a post-tonal idiom without a harmonic hierarchy.

The poetic research of the piece concerns the nature of programmatic references in the manner of Beethoven’s Symphony No.6, ‘Pastorale’, and an attempt to reference the landscapes described by Beethoven’s contemporary, Alexander von Humboldt, in a way that gives them contemporary resonance and relevance.