An extraordinary mildness was written for the percussionist Claire Edwardes between 11th and 20th March 2020 and is a companion piece to my piano work, The calm of mountains (2018). Both pieces take their titles from a poem by W.H. Auden, ‘Herman Melville', in which Auden reflects on the relationship between the passing of time and the gaining of greater understanding. The poem begins
Towards the end he sailed into an extraordinary mildness, And anchored in his homeAn extraordinary mildness was written during the period when the COVID‐19 pandemic was beginning to change everyone’s life in Australia, where Claire Edwardes is based, and Britain, where I live. As all my compositional deadlines disappeared the most positive thing I could think of doing was to write music for which there was no scheduled performances, but in fact Claire premiered it in an on-line concert on 24th May 2020. An extraordinary mildness is dedicated to Claire and lasts about 9 minutes.
