The Lonely Woodpecker

26/3/03 for four alto saxes

Excellent recordings of the first performance;

ruchenitsa.mp3 (2'23, 2.2Mb)

lonelyw.mp3 (2'36, 2.4Mb)

paidushka.mp3 (3'35, 3.3Mb)

Composer's note

'The Lonely Woodpecker' was composed at great speed during my residency at the Banff Centre in the winter of 2003; in fact, the central movement was started at half past eight on the morning of Friday 7 March, and given its first performance a scant twelve hours later! As well as being a suitably cod-Bulgarian title for a cod-Bulgarian piece, one might detect references to both my birdwatching experiences in Canada and to a certain loneliness which I was experiencing at the time.

All the tunes in the piece are original. The 'Ruchenitsa' has very little in common with the traditional form, apart from being mostly in 7/8; this tune comes from an earlier work for flute & bassoon. 'The Lonely Woodpecker' was consciously inspired by Peter Liomdev's arrangement of 'Kaval Sviri' on Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares Vol 2. The paidûshka is traditionally a dance in quintuple meter with five-bar sections; this particular melody was part of an extended piece of the same title for Invention Ensemble. It is modelled fairly closely on a tune called 'Ot dólu ide lûdata Iána', or 'Here Comes Silly Iana' taken from 'Bulgarian - Macedonian Folk Music' by Boris A. Kremenliev.

Background

The first performance took place, as noted, at the Banff Centre on Friday 7 March 2003, the players being Jeremy Brown, Charlotte Bradburn, Brian Christensen and Floor Wittink; to whom I dedicate the piece.

Unlike perhaps most of my work, an attracvtive, conventional, and easily performable piece, eminently suitable for sax quartets in search of repertoire.

Duration ~9 mins