Nocturnal Image

This large-scale work divides broadly into two sections. The first presents two fragmented ideas in alternation, one scurrying and the other more melodic in character. Each idea gradually becomes less fragmented, until they both finally coalesce into complete entities. This having been achieved the music comes to rest on a low G, which serves to articulate the two halves. From this point onwards the two ideas of the first half are gradually combined, as the music increasingly accelerates towards the final cadence.

The work took its initial inspiration from the last two pages of Thomas Mann’s Lotte in Weimar, where Goethe discusses “the parable of the moth and the fatal, luring flame.” In visualising the parable, the title Nocturnal Image presented itself as appropriate.

Nocturnal Image was written between July and October 1980 in response to a request from cellist Alexander Baillie, who gave the premiere of the piece at Dacorum Music Club on 11 January 1982. 

Philip Grange