Full score and parts for hire

This work, written in 1978, is a collection of seven miniatures which may be played in any number and in any order. Although based on the same set of intervals (the minor third is prominent), they are all of individualistic character and do not suggest any one fixed line of progression through them, but rather many possible lines; hence the idea of an ‘album’. Angela’s Problem: the conflict within a soul of the rigid and the supple. Argelus: fantasy on a remote memory of evening church bells in a medieval French town. Brian’s Fancy: a ‘thank you’ for the music of Brian Ferneyhough. Portrait of Dominic: a soul-picture of the composer’s eleven year old son – innocence touched by the first distant premonition of adolescence (heralded by the horn). Horn melody: build up to a melody, finally played complete by the horn. Cambridge (memories): a short musical object turned round in silent space and looked at from many angles – remembers student days. Serilalea: confrontation of intellect with intuition – juxtapositions of total serialism with aleatoric improvisations – the players are asked to perform the impossible, to imitate spontaneously what took the composer hours to work out. Jonathan Harvey