Winter Music (2016)

Winter Music (2016)
for harp solo

Cast in two contrasting movements, Winter Music is a study for solo harp, imbued with colouristic and timbral associations from the season of winter. The first movement is spacious and predominantly soft, patterning harp figurations out of a slow unfolding of pitch. This process is then reconfigured in the faster and more rhythmic second movement, where cycles of repeating notes gradually warm and colour the harmonic palette, culminating in a fleeting vision of spring in the work’s closing gestures.

Winter Music was commissioned with funds made available by the Tanza Trust and is dedicated to harpist Oliver Wass, who premiered the piece at St John’s Smith Square, London, on 26 October 2017.

Julian Philips, 2023