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- Simon Holt
Capriccio Spettrale (1988)
- Chester Music Ltd (World)
Commissioned by Süddeutscher Rundfunk Stuttgart Revised for BCMG 2008
Performing Rights Society Composers Award in 1989 and RPS Charles Hiedsieck Award
Written 1998, revised for BCMG 2008.
- 1(afl)01(bcl)0/11(pictpt)00/str(2.0.2.1.1)
- 12 min
Programme Note
Capriccio Spettrale is based on the etchings of the same name by Francisco de Goya.
The work was revised in 2008 for BCMG, as part of the Sound Census project. This performance was conducted by Diego Masson.
Several of Simon Holt’s works have conveyed something of the dark light of Spain, whether by way of Lorca’s poems or, as in the present case, Goya’s imagery - in particular, the nightmare visions contained in the etchings the artist published as Los Caprichos. Hence this capriccio, which is spectral not in the sense of being eerie and wraithlike (except at moments) but rather in being brilliantly coloured, as well as generally loud and strong.
It starts from an alternation between emphatic tutti music and the livelier material with solo flute to which that music leads. Later episodes include a passage in bright chords, a short slow strain for bass clarinet with low string trio, and a solo for piccolo trumpet, this moving the music towards its animated central development. Eventually that development exhausts itself, and trumpet and horn call out, their echo taken up by muted strings. The fantasy is almost over, but not quite.
Holt wrote the piece in 1988 to a commission from the radio in Stuttgart, and won awards for it from the Performing Rights Society and the Royal Philharmonic Society. He revised it 21 years later for BCMG with support from the Sound Investment scheme.
© Paul Griffiths
To reproduce these programme notes, please contact Paul Griffiths at grifwest@juno.com
The work was revised in 2008 for BCMG, as part of the Sound Census project. This performance was conducted by Diego Masson.
Several of Simon Holt’s works have conveyed something of the dark light of Spain, whether by way of Lorca’s poems or, as in the present case, Goya’s imagery - in particular, the nightmare visions contained in the etchings the artist published as Los Caprichos. Hence this capriccio, which is spectral not in the sense of being eerie and wraithlike (except at moments) but rather in being brilliantly coloured, as well as generally loud and strong.
It starts from an alternation between emphatic tutti music and the livelier material with solo flute to which that music leads. Later episodes include a passage in bright chords, a short slow strain for bass clarinet with low string trio, and a solo for piccolo trumpet, this moving the music towards its animated central development. Eventually that development exhausts itself, and trumpet and horn call out, their echo taken up by muted strings. The fantasy is almost over, but not quite.
Holt wrote the piece in 1988 to a commission from the radio in Stuttgart, and won awards for it from the Performing Rights Society and the Royal Philharmonic Society. He revised it 21 years later for BCMG with support from the Sound Investment scheme.
© Paul Griffiths
To reproduce these programme notes, please contact Paul Griffiths at grifwest@juno.com
Scores
Reviews
Although inescapably of this world, Holt feels himself to be an estranged observer rather than an active participant. One might best describe his surreal world as a dreamscape populated by objects which seems curiously familiar, comforting even, but whose raison d’être is far from clear, a quality that pervades Capriccio Spettrale. The most striking thing about it is the confidence with which larger spans are articulated. The material on which most of the work is based is presented in a seamless progression from nervy, staccato bustle to stifled brooding. Juxtaposition is still the name of the game, but it is now married to a sense of more organic unfolding, not with a view to the symphonic, however – as the main body of the piece makes clear: any sense of a traditional musical process is quickly subverted as images pass by in apparently random profusion. The outcome is a kind of coda, at first slow and wistful, which lingers longingly on half remembered material before a rudden reactivation of the opening – which we now hear with completely different ears (it’s certainly no formulistic reprise).
1st June 1993