Beschreibung
This piece was commissioned in 2009 by the Arts Programme of Salford University to mark forty years of service in 2010 by Michael Allen (Director of Music for the Arts Programme). It was given its first performance on February 9th 2010 in Peel Hall, University of Salford by the Wessel Ensemble, made up of members of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra - Jenny Hutchinson (flute), Martin Clark (violin), Fiona Petersen (viola) and Melissa Edwards (cello).
There are four short movements.
1. Introduzione - Allegro moderato
2. Fuga Minuscola - Moderato e marcato
3. Quasi una passacaglia - Allegro deciso
4. Variazione Sopra un Tema di Giovinezza - Pensiero
Composer's note:-
I was very pleased to be asked to write a piece for Michael Allen, with whom I have always been on the most cordial of personal and musical terms. As the time scale of forty years was relevant, I used a theme I had written forty years ago as the basis of the first movement and the opening notes the movements of Michael's Divertimento for string trio, also written forty years ago, as the basis of a note row for the last movement. The two short inner movements are a minute fugue [not a Minute Fugue as in Minute Waltz, though it can be played in sixty seconds!] and then a passacaglia based on A. E. A. D. A. C. B flat., alphabet notation in Italian (in which Michael lectured) to read "to M.A. from C.B". The last movement is a set of serial variations which, using my "remainder note" system, becomes progressively more tonal with half-quotations from an Italian tune written a hundred years ago in 1909 and later renamed "Youth". At the end, after a completely tonal resolution including the tune of the first movement, "Youth" recedes into memory!