Piano Trio in B Minor (2021)
Following the success of writing the 1st Piano Sonata I was encouraged by Andrew Toovey to write a Piano Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano for a potential memorial concert for a musician friend of his that had passed away.
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Written in 3 movements this was again a piece that came together remarkably quickly, within a week for the first draft which, with minor revisions, is essentially the finished article. Keen to avoid the usual piano dominated trio format the piano often takes a back seat into a more accompanying role, especially in the 2nd movement.
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Duration 12:43
I - Allegro
II - Adagio Dolce
III - Adagio-Allegro con moto-Adagio-Vivace
Piano Septet in G Minor (2022)
Scored for Piano, Viola, Cello, Double Bass, Flugelhorn and two Bassoons, the Piano Septet in G minor was heavily inspired by the works of Johann Nepomuk Hummel and his Piano Septets. I've long been a great lover of the works of Hummel, and find both his concertos and his chamber music to be of a very high quality.
This Septet came together over the course of 6 or 7 months, with the initial drafts for the 1st movement being written in the Summer of 2021 and the completion of that 1st movement and subsequent movements 2, 3 and 4 over the Winter of 2021/22. The instrumentation was chosen for a variety of reasons. Having used Violin in the first Piano Trio I was experimenting with drafts for a second trio which would have a viola instead of the violin. With that in mind when I came to the initial drafts for the Septet the Piano, Cello and Viola were very much in my mind already. The Double Bass joined them, firstly because I am a Double Bass player myself, and secondly because of the inspired way in which the Bass is used in both Hummel's Septets and in Saint-Saëns'. The Flugelhorn has long been a favourite of mine, I prefer it to the harshness of the Trumpet and yet its range allows it to play that melodic role within this Septet. The choice of 2 Bassoons was inspired by my use of 2 Bassoons in my film score for 'All About my Sister' (2020) in which, for a number of cues, I utilised two bassoons playing off each other.
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I - Allegro Agitato
II - Allegretto
III - Larghetto
IV - Vivace
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Duration - 15:30
Brass Quintet: A Ramble for Grainger (2024)
Written for RBC's House of Brass for Birmingham New Music's New Forms March 2024 Concert this Ramble is based on the slow movement of Alessandro Marcello's Oboe Concerto in D Minor. Taking that harmonic framework and theme, inspired by the work of Percy Grainger (in particular Blithe Bells), was produced this slow melodic Ramble, which then becomes something very different at the very end.
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House of Brass is an unusual Brass Quintet in the sense that they have foregone the French horn in place of a second trombone, dividing the trombones into Tenor and Bass. This naturally changes both the texture of the ensemble as well as the weighting which allows for a new approach to writing for Brass Quintet.
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I- Adagio
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Duration 6:40
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Premiered 13th March 2024, Birmingham
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(Also arranged for Solo Piano, Solo Organ and Strings)