Output details

Azalea Fragments

Commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra. Premiered at the Barbican, 1 June 2008, LSO, conducted by Pavel Kotla. Published by Schott & Co. Further performance: BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Mark Heron, BBC Philharmonic Studios, Media City, Salford, 8 March 2012. Broadcast on BBC Radio 3 Pre-Hear 30 March 2013. Azalea Fragments responds to Duddell’s interest in the work of the English painter Patrick Heron. The piece is a reaction to seeing his 1956 painting Azalea Gardens on a visit to Tate St. Ives, near where Heron was based for much of his life. Heron was largely an abstract painter, and the piece explores the possibility of trying to reflect the contrast in his work, particularly with regard to light and colour and the changing experience of looking at a painting over an extended time period. The research explored how composers respond to visual art, considering the problem of referencing painting in music through balancing transcription and more general allusion. Azalea Gardens is episodic in nature, with the fragments in the music alluding not only to the fragments of paint on the canvas but also to the way the view of the painting could change dramatically over time.