Songs of Empty Landscapes (2020)
(for Alto Saxophone, violin, Viola, Cello and Piano)

This work was inspired by Bruce Percy’s minimalist nature photography. These photographs depict a variety of ‘empty’ landscapes from white snowy plains to vast deserted lands. In the music, I attempted to capture some of the vagueness, emptiness and apparent simplicity that these photographs, or indeed, empty landscapes evoke. Each movement is a piece of its own providing a window into one landscape, yet musical material is shared throughout the whole work.

I Prelude opens the piece with the lonesome singing of the violin.

II A thick texture dominates Haze. This is punctured by ringing chords, like church bells sounding in the mist.

III Snowriver is an abstract depiction of a cold running river in deep winter.

IV Lullaby is a slow, wistful piano trio.

V Earth Red is inspired by barren, scorched desert landscapes.

VI In Grey-Blue the fragile, melancholic soundworld, reflects upon undulating hills of snow-covered lands.

VII Postlude concludes the work, with the low humming of the cello