Output details

Fantasia and Air for solo vioin (duration 8 minutes). Commissioned by the Park Lane Group for their New Year Series at the SouthBank Centre and premiered by Tamsin Waley Cohen; 13 further performances, including at the SouthBank Centre, in Italy and in Canada.

My research questions here were (generally) how to create coherence in a post-tonal idiom whilst consciously leaving aside extended techniques, and (more specifically) how to develop a new species of melody capable of sounding like the inevitable consequence of what comes before it in the work. The resulting melody (Air) ‘discovers’ the open G string of the instrument, a grounded, ‘earthed’ sound that has been withheld in all previous sections of the piece (it finally appears on the fifth system of page 8 where it is established, along with its harmonics, as a drone).

Having completed the Air, I worked backwards to the beginning of the piece. The focus of research here was to create meaningful antecedence for the Air and this was achieved using a variety of techniques: in terms of pitch, by ‘trailing’ melodic material harmonically (as at the opening and throughout the Double), and in terms of rhythm/pace, by exploring differing relationships between speed and harmonic rhythm throughout the Fantasia and the Double.

The Fantasia repeatedly emphasises the low A flat as a low ‘tonic’ from which it seeks to escape upwards whilst withholding the G - a tendency reaffirmed in the Double which finally evanesces into high harmonics, preparing the ground for the arrival of the Air. In common with outputs 1-3, the musical language of Fantasia and Air demonstrates an acute awareness of phrase, period and cadence but here it is part of a variation form that I may at some future point wish to expand with further movements.