Eclipsing (2004)

Although written in 2004 the original impetus for this piece occurred some ten years earlier, with the idea of composing something inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s short story The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. It was never intended that the piece be programmatic, but rather that it would use the conflict between two opposing sides of the main character’s personality as a metaphor for how the music unfolds. On a large scale this is manifest in the alternation of slow and fast music. Initially each type of music is treated expansively, but as the piece progresses the exchange becomes more frenetic until, by the end, it is happening on a bar-by-bar basis. On an instrumental level the characterisation of the different music is enhanced by the mellow flugelhorn featuring in the slow music, and its brighter counterpart, the trumpet, being given a degree of prominence in the faster music. On a more local level there is also conflict in the opening section – which is repeated near the end of the piece – between the wide-spaced string harmonies and the heavy brass chords that interrupt them. It was the idea of one material trying to block out another that gave rise to the title Eclipsing.

Eclipsing was commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and premiered on 29 January 2005 in the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester by the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Vassily Sinaisky.

Philip Grange