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Spira mirabilis's residency at the 2011 Aldeburgh Festival was a revelation. I was enthralled by the intensity of their playing and by their total commitment to such a radical approach to performance and repertoire. I talked with some of the players at the time, wondering how far they could go in playing music that would make more demands on their conductor-free model, and whether a new work would be practicable, given the amount of rehearsal time that would be needed to master a piece from scratch. What I had not anticipated was that I would be asked, around a year later, if I would write such a piece for them myself. Although I knew that it wouldn't be a straightforward task, I had no hesitation in accepting. Having nearly two years to think about it was a bonus; but an even greater bonus was that Spira decided that they wanted to perform an existing piece of mine, so that we could get to know each other. This was to take place in January 2014, so I had to make the difficult choice of whether or not I should start work on the piece before I had worked with them. I made some very preliminary sketches in the autumn of 2013, but made up my mind that I would risk leaving the bulk of the work to the first half of 2014. Since Spira only play one piece in their concerts, it clearly had to last at least 20 minutes, well above my normal work rate for a period of less than six months! The work that they chose to perform in January was my Grand Barcarolle, which had been commissioned by Riccardo Chailly as one of five new pieces that would accompany his 2011 Beethoven cycle with the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra. The Barcarolle was designed to be played before Beethoven's Eighth, and in describing it I half-jokingly suggested that it might be thought of as the slow movement that Beethoven had forgotten to write for that symphony. No orchestra but Spira mirabilis would have proposed that that was what it should become, and play it as the fourth movement, placed between the minuet and the finale. There is no space here to describe the experience of working with them at their base in the small town of Formigine in northern Italy. Seemingly unlimited rehearsal time, much extended discussion, sometimes 20 minutes reworking a single bar: it was as if I was working with 40 chamber musicians all with a single aim. Their approach to Beethoven was no less revelatory -since they knew the symphony by heart, one rehearsal took place in total darkness. I returned full of ideas for the new piece, perhaps the most important conclusion being that I needed to make no concessions in writing for an orchestra without conductor. My January experience somehow allowed me to complete the piece in draft by the beginning of June: it wasn't exactly easy to write, but I couldn't allow myself to stop. The intensity of working at it means that in writing this introduction, four months after finishing it and a month before I will hear it for the first time, I don't find it easy to look back at and explain. The title, in spite of its obvious connections, was long in coming: by using the word 'spiralling' I wanted to describe how the music twists and turns, sometimes in bold statements which turn in on themselves (as at the opening) sometimes in rapid, scherzo-like figuration, sometimes in slow unfolding. The work plays without a break, but may be thought of as in three parts: an extended and developed introduction (from which all the subsequent material is derived) followed by a scherzo; a central section, mostly slow and melodic; and a final section which is part recapitulation and part development, mainly fast, but pulled back by a return to the opening before being let loose again. Spiralling was commissioned by Aldeburgh Music for the 2014 Britten Weekend; it is, of course, dedicated to 'my friends in Spira mirabilis'.

Colin Matthews