ARRANGEMENTS
ANON: PLYVE KACHA (The Duck Swims)
YEAR: 2023
DURATION: 4′
INSTRUMENTATION: String Orchestra
NOTES: This Ukranian folk-song is a farewell. A duck crossing waters is a symbol of death and going to the other side. This beautiful lament speaks to the dangers and price of war.
TALLIS: O NATA LUX DE LUMINE
YEAR: 2022
DURATION: 3′
INSTRUMENTATION: String Orchestra
NOTES: From Tallis’s Office Hymn for Feast of the Transfiguration, Cantiones sacrae (1575).
BENNET: WEEP, O MINE EYES
YEAR: 2020
DURATION: 2′
INSTRUMENTATION: String Quartet
NOTES: A simple arrangement for string quartet of a madrigal by John Bennet, first published in Madrigalls to Fovre Voyces (1599).
BEETHOVEN: PIANO SONATA Op. 10 No. 3, Second Movement
YEAR: 2020
DURATION: 9′
INSTRUMENTATION: String Quintet
NOTES: Beethoven arranged several of his piano works for strings, and it struck me that this dramatic movement would work well for a quintet.
TALLIS: THE THIRD MODE MELODY
YEAR: 2020
DURATION: 2′
INSTRUMENTATION: String Quartet or String Orchestra
NOTES: From Tallis’s Tunes for Archbishop Parker's Psalter (1567). This melody was made famous by Vaughan Williams' arrangement.
GIBBONS: THE SILVER SWAN
YEAR: 2019
DURATION: 1′
INSTRUMENTATION: String Quartet
NOTES: This arrangement was made for a concert which I gave in Barnard Castle, home of the Bowes Museum which houses the life-size, 18th century Silver Swan musical automaton. Orlando Gibbons composed many madrigals, and The Silver Swan, first published in Gibbons' First Set of Madrigals and Motets of 5 parts (1612), is one of the best known.
DELIUS: TO BE SUNG OF A SUMMER NIGHT ON THE WATER
YEAR: 2018
DURATION: 3′
INSTRUMENTATION: String Orchestra
NOTES: This arrangement of Delius’s original part-song for SATTBB with solo tenor, is an alternative to Eric Fenby’s 1938 version.