Lunar Solar (2025)
(Double Concerto for Oboe and Cor Anglais)

Lunar Solar

This double concerto is two days in the life of the Moon (cor anglais) and the Sun (oboe), musical palindromes with the arc, over the world, of their rising and setting. The harp and percussion are there to enhance their soundworlds, with warm, also searing, radiance and chilling but sinuous, glinting mystery.

In DAY 1, the Sun rises, shimmering and sparkling, then becomes suddenly glorious as it reaches its zenith, casting its rays down to Earth, in a typically Polish mode (raised 4th, flattened 7th). Then it starts to set, as a palindrome of the previous material.

As the Sun descends, the Moon starts to rise and once the sun has disappeared ascends its palindrome in a more mysterious, slightly spooky style. The harp enhances this with pedal-waggle portamentos and the marimba slides around chromatically. As it reaches its skyward summit, it becomes suddenly darkly gleaming, with descending moon beams as an opalescent 5/4 lullaby.

As the Moon descends the Sun starts to rise again, taking us into DAY 2. We find ourselves in a searing sunrise, in Egypt. The Sun’s main theme is now in the Egyptian Phrygian Dominant mode and plays with harsher articulation. The double bass, harp and vibraphone duet in a typical Sai’di (Northern Egypt) darbuka drum rhythm, punctuated by singeing sizzle cymbals, seared with a string bow.  

The music, overwhelmed by the extreme temperatures, stops suddenly and we go into a cadenza where the Sun becomes less harsh again and duets with the Moon.

The Moon starts to rise in Greece, its material now in the Greek Piraeus bazouki scale. The Sun joins in as they move, almost in tandem, the duetting becoming rhapsodic as their respective beams and rays simultaneously shower down on the Earth. They become closer and closer until the Moon obscures the Sun and we slip into a lunar eclipse, on a single note, with the brighter Sun’s corona escaping around the circumference of the Moon, in the sparkling harp and crotales.

The Sun and Moon slide apart again, but still rhapsodically duetting until the day ends for them both. Playful little motes and beams of light drift away, ending in the memory of their eclipse together.

I am hugely grateful to my co-commissioners, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. I could not have written this piece without the wonderful collaboration with my soloists: RLPO principal oboe Helena Mackie and RLPO principal Cor Anglais Drake Gritton; RLPO principal harpist Elizabeth McNulty and RLPO principal percussionist Matthew Brett. Also to my Facebook friends who suggested the Sun and Moon as the two entities for this concerto and provided some truly inspirational adjectives to describe them.

RP, 20th November 2025