Catch the Sound

About

In 2017 I wrote a violin concerto with a sizeable part for a solo percussionist, and some of the musical ideas inspired this piece, which took on a completely new life, particularly as I worked on making fun, challenging, yet not too intractable brass parts. Carefree and invigorating are the guiding moods, and the rattling flow of a braided river like many of our rivers is an image which sat in my mind.

I rather like, too the lines at the end of the poem 'The River in You' by Brian Turner (Victoria University Press, 2001):

.....the pull
that draws you back is the river in you
racing to keep time with the river sound.

So the piece is full of repetitions in a rondo-like mosaic: when ideas return they may be shorter, longer, altered in pitch or rhythm.

---