Cantilena

(2008) Oboe and string trio

Duration: 10-11'

Commissioned by the London Chamber Music Society to celebrate their move to Kings Place in October 2008

Premiere:    October 5, 2008, Kings Place, London

Nicholas Daniel, Oboe

Members of the Chilingarian Quartet

The work is a short, lyrical piece where an outsider [the oboe] joins the group [a string trio] and adds to their dialogue. At first the newcomer is treated with a mixture of suspicion and agitation, but eventually is made welcome.

The oboe is invited to share the musical theme that has been established which he then proceeds to embellish and adorn. He leads the harmonic changes that result in the theme being heard in many different keys. He then introduces a new theme. The excitement grows and leads to a climax.

A peaceful coda re-establishes the original theme and all ends harmoniously among the integrated quartet.

Thea Musgrave ©

Thea Musgrave (b 1928)

Rich, powerful musical language and a strong sense of drama have made Scottish-American composer Thea Musgrave one of the most respected and exciting of living composers.

With a list of works that includes ten operas and two ballets, Thea Musgrave is a composer whose creativity is based on a vivid dramatic instinct. Even her concert works may be conceived as dramatic scenarios between individual instruments and orchestral sections, the drama on occasions emphasised by staging instructions to the musicians. After periods of study in Edinburgh, Paris and the United States, she adopted serialism in the 1960s, though her style has since evolved towards a robust and luxuriant lyricism.