Canticle of Winter was written in the village ofBlewbury, Oxfordshire, where I live, during the winterof 2019, and was inspired by the last stanza of RobertFrost’s poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening:The woods are lovely, dark and deep,But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep. The sense of restlessness, of somethingunresolved, despite the beauty of the winter landscape,permeates the music. It is written in rondo form, andthe first theme, soft, sustained and melancholic, iscontrasted with rhythmic string writing against whichthe saxophone plays exuberant flurries of notes, as ifimprovised. The dynamic range of the entire piece isfrom ppp to barely more than mf, and it is the soft,plangent sound of the soprano saxophone that evokesthe stillness of the winter night and the traveler’sjourney through it. Canticle of Winter was first performed on October19th.2019 by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra atCadogan Hall, London, conducted by Gavin Carr. Thesoloist was Amy Dickson, to whom the work isdedicated. Richard Blackford
- ISMN: 9790708167341 (M708167341)
