A Small Box, the Colour of Heartache

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Inspired by the book: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. There's a page of this elsewhere on the site, but as I'm testing the blog I'll post it here too.

I like the Chalumeau register of the Clarinet; as the palest voice in the Orchestra it seems to speak well to Lady Pole. The melancholy of the melody is belied by quite a fast tempo, and the quick, quick part is out of sync with the waltz. I thought this illustrated her condition quite well.

Daoine Sidhe

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Inspired by the book: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. There's a page of this elsewhere on the site, but as I'm testing the blog I'll post it here too.

This one owes a little to the Scherzo movement of Beethoven's 9th, which is quite astonishingly presumptuous, if I let myself think about it. That particular pinnacle of human achievement was written five years after the end of the events of the novel, but it evokes (to me) a horseback charge across an English field, perhaps with the Faerie host mounted. Also, A Clockwork Orange!

 

American Woman

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Written with the Copland-esque, Americana style firmly in mind, this was a great piece for finding balances in a new orchestral template. Nobody would accuse it of originality, but that wasn't the point. A couple of things: again, written long-hand, on full-score paper, and played entirely free time - no click or quantization*


*Apropos that, I found a really cool way of automating tempo in Logic, so you really can "conduct" your session. Now, if we could just get them to give us streamers and punches...