The title Old Night is taken from John Milton's 'Paradise Lost', Book 1. I was rereading 'Paradise Lost' at the time and stumbled across a passage I found very evocative in tone and character. This passage and a gagaku melody (traditional Japanese court melody) called 'Jisei' form the foundations of the piece.'Jisei' is also the name for Japanese death poetry in which the first stanza consists of 5,7,5 syllables. I started with this as a basic structural idea: 5 movements based around a rotating 7-note chord, with each movement lasting about a minute. The final piece closely relates to this initial plan but with the addition of a brief introduction and coda.
The work is dedicated to John Gruzelier and was commissioned by the Cheltenham Music Festival with funds from the Cheltenham Festival Society, first performed by the Nash Ensemble on Sunday 17 July 2005 in the Town Hall, Cheltenham.
