Description
This piece was written in February and March 2002 in response to a request by Murray McLachlan for a piece for the Second Chethams International Piano Festival. It was first performed by him in Whiteley Hall, Chethams School of Music, Manchester on 31st August, 2002.
The work is in four short movements arranged in a fast-slow, fast-slow structure. Like most of the composer's mature music, it deals with the conflict between tonality and atonality in a way to stress traditional values over those passing fashions which have often alienated audiences. To this end, humour is used as well as recognisable melodic construction. In the fast movements, the humorous element is predominant, whereas the slow movements contain a sense of nostalgia.
1. Allegro scherzando This movement is rhythmic throughout and only slows significantly at the end, as if running out of steam. A tonal melody is pulled out of an atonal framework, one of the composer's hallmarks. The tonality of this melody is modulated from B major to F major.
2. Adagio This is an almost completely tonal movement in A flat major with short atonal episodes to disturb the otherwise tranquil mood.
3. Scherzo and Trio A true scherzo in the one-in-a bar Beethovenian sense which is based on hexachords. The Trio however, is a satirical mock Morris.
4. Adagio semplice A tonal melody related to that of the first movement is soon established and insistently overcomes attempts to swamp it in near-atonal structures. The movement has an elegiac atmosphere. As in the first movement, the final tonal shift is also to F major, but this time from a preceding F sharp major.