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- Simon Holt
Terrain (2013)
- Chester Music Ltd (World)
Six individual works which have been written so they can be presented as a 'whole' as Terrain. Instrumentation is from String Sextet down to solo viola.
Each work is available separately - please see individual work pages:
String Sextet: the torturer's horse (16')
'everything turns away' (piano/ violin, viola, cello, double bass) (8')
3rd Quartet (23')
'amapolas' (string trio) (11')
'Telarañas' (violin and cello) (11')
'mantis' (viola solo) (3')
Programme Note
Terrain:
String Sextet: the torturer's horse (16')
'everything turns away' (piano/ violin, viola, cello, double bass) (8')
3rd Quartet (23')
'amapolas' (string trio) (11')
'Telarañas' (violin and cello) (11')
'mantis' (viola solo) (3')
Each work is available separately - please see individual work pages for full details.
The idea behind the 'Terrain' cycle of string pieces, which has very much evolved through the process of writing the pieces and not from any previously conceived idea, stems from the idea of different kinds of interlocking material cast like a web over the 6 independent pieces. The string sextet (the torturer's horse), which begins the cycle, at one point uses material derived from the 4th piece in the cycle; the string trio ('amapolas', Spanish for poppies, inspired by a huge field of poppies seen when out one day driving near to where I live in Spain). The idea behind the sextet involves the tragic event depicted in the poem 'Musée des Beaux Arts' by Auden, namely the death of Icarus as he falls from the sky into an idyllic bucolic landscape in which the inhabitants turn away from this appalling event, or appear to be oblivious to it and carry on regardless. This idea is carried forward into the next piece in the cycle: 'everything turns away' (for the 'Trout' quintet combination). A pianist walks onstage whilst the four string players, as it were, 'go about their business', and he plays music utterly at odd with their music. They ignore him as he plays music derived from the 6th piece in the cycle, 'mantis', which is about the vivid green insect of the same name, which I saw (also in Spain) walking slowly across a table top with maximum concentration only to fall of the end when it got there! 'Telarañas' means cobwebs in Spanish, which I suppose one could see as a kind of terrain for spiders. This web music is cast across several movements also and helps to bind them altogether.
(c) Simon Holt
String Sextet: the torturer's horse (16')
'everything turns away' (piano/ violin, viola, cello, double bass) (8')
3rd Quartet (23')
'amapolas' (string trio) (11')
'Telarañas' (violin and cello) (11')
'mantis' (viola solo) (3')
Each work is available separately - please see individual work pages for full details.
The idea behind the 'Terrain' cycle of string pieces, which has very much evolved through the process of writing the pieces and not from any previously conceived idea, stems from the idea of different kinds of interlocking material cast like a web over the 6 independent pieces. The string sextet (the torturer's horse), which begins the cycle, at one point uses material derived from the 4th piece in the cycle; the string trio ('amapolas', Spanish for poppies, inspired by a huge field of poppies seen when out one day driving near to where I live in Spain). The idea behind the sextet involves the tragic event depicted in the poem 'Musée des Beaux Arts' by Auden, namely the death of Icarus as he falls from the sky into an idyllic bucolic landscape in which the inhabitants turn away from this appalling event, or appear to be oblivious to it and carry on regardless. This idea is carried forward into the next piece in the cycle: 'everything turns away' (for the 'Trout' quintet combination). A pianist walks onstage whilst the four string players, as it were, 'go about their business', and he plays music utterly at odd with their music. They ignore him as he plays music derived from the 6th piece in the cycle, 'mantis', which is about the vivid green insect of the same name, which I saw (also in Spain) walking slowly across a table top with maximum concentration only to fall of the end when it got there! 'Telarañas' means cobwebs in Spanish, which I suppose one could see as a kind of terrain for spiders. This web music is cast across several movements also and helps to bind them altogether.
(c) Simon Holt