Pipers All

About

This suite was written from 1999 when movements 1, 3 and 4 were composed and completed in 2003 with movements 2 and 5. It depicts various piper characters from English literature, except for the second movement The Piper of Dreams which was suggested by a picture by Estella Canziani (1887-1964) of a boy whose playing of a pipe has enticed fairy creatures to dance around him.

The first movement, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn is taken from the Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. The third movement Peter Piper and Tom the Piper's Son are from nursery rhymes, the fourth, Blake's Piper from Piping down the Valleys Wild from the poem by William Blake, and the last movement The Pied Piper from the famous piper of Hamelin from the poem by Robert Browning. The middle section of this movement depicts the disappointment of the little lame boy who could not keep up and was thus denied the delights promised to the other children spirited away by the piper's music.