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- Judith Weir
I give you the end of a golden string (2013)
- Chester Music Ltd (World)
Programme Note
My aim when I began this piece was to create a long length of string music out of a single strand of melody. While experimenting at the beginning, shaping and extending a melody in many possible directions, I came across William Blake’s lines….
I give you the end of a golden string;
Only wind it into a ball,
It will lead you in at Heaven’s gate,
Built in Jerusalems’s wall
…and this became my working method, winding a single tune around itself so that it gradually formed itself into a much richer, more complex texture. The process happens three times, producing the equivalent of a continuous three movement concerto.
The ‘first movement’ is engendered by two solo violas (the melody at the beginning already entwined with a slightly alternative version of itself). The ‘slow movement’ (a more extended, more decorated development of the opening tune) is introduced by a solo cello (soon winding itself into a quartet of celli). The fast ‘finale’, led by two solo violins, focuses on decorations within the melody, rolling out ribbons of (Britten-like?) thirds. The duration of the whole piece is around sixteen minutes.
I give you the end of a golden string was commissioned by the Britten-Pears Foundation and the Royal Philharmonic Society.
Judith Weir
I give you the end of a golden string;
Only wind it into a ball,
It will lead you in at Heaven’s gate,
Built in Jerusalems’s wall
…and this became my working method, winding a single tune around itself so that it gradually formed itself into a much richer, more complex texture. The process happens three times, producing the equivalent of a continuous three movement concerto.
The ‘first movement’ is engendered by two solo violas (the melody at the beginning already entwined with a slightly alternative version of itself). The ‘slow movement’ (a more extended, more decorated development of the opening tune) is introduced by a solo cello (soon winding itself into a quartet of celli). The fast ‘finale’, led by two solo violins, focuses on decorations within the melody, rolling out ribbons of (Britten-like?) thirds. The duration of the whole piece is around sixteen minutes.
I give you the end of a golden string was commissioned by the Britten-Pears Foundation and the Royal Philharmonic Society.
Judith Weir
Scores
Score Preview
Reviews
New was Judith Weir's I Give You the End of a Golden String, its title referencing William Blake and its trajectory based on the notion of extending a single strand of melody in various directions and creating textural enrichment from its relative simplicity; as always with Weir, the score's directness of expression and technical skill matched neatly.
26th November 2013
Weir's complex weavings of her initial thematic thread balanced the work's dancing, sometimes wistful, lilt.
10th June 2013