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Dance the dark streets
(2003 rev. 2005)
Concerto Grosso for string orchestra with piano obbligato
piano, string orchestra
duration: 12'
1 Haar; 2 Whirlwind
Gemini Publications
First performance 30 March 2005
Nicola Eimer (pf), Orchestra Nova/George Vass
St Giles Cripplegate, Barbican, London (Dutton recording)
DANCE THE DARK STREETS  Haar Whirlwind
| The two movements of Dance the dark streets are inspired by poems about different aspects of Scottish weather. I enjoy the rich language and the sense of glowering stillness that Alexander's poem, Haar in Princes Street, evokes with phrases such as 'hudder like ghaists in the gastrous haar.' In Haar I have tried to capture the drifting looming quality of that mist from the sea.
The second movement, Whirlwind, brushes away the 'haar' with a wild wind. This movement is influenced by Norman MacCaig's poem, 'April dances the dark streets of November, Pied Piper leading a procession of the coloured dreams of summer.' |
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