Violin I: Aditya Chander
Violin II: Harry Castle
Viola: Roc Fargas Castells
'Cello: Joshua Ballance
Piano: Toby Hession

Recorded at Clare College, Cambridge on 20th April, 2016.

Eclogue (2016)

String quartet composed by me, 2016, being performed live.

Vel Primus Vel Cum Primis

Originally composed for the same, unusual instrumentation as Darius Milhaud's 1922 Chamber-Ballet 'La Creation du Monde' (and therefore intended to be played alongside it), this work tells the story of the creation of the world according to Norse Mythology.

In the beginning there is nothingness. Gradually this space fills with water, which freezes and then partially melts. From the drops of melting water a giant in human form emerges. This is Ymir. From his armpit a man and a woman appear - human in form, but giants like himself. Meanwhile Audlumba, a cow, has licked the melting ice and has revealed another giant, from whom the god Odin descends. Odin and his brothers kill the aged Ymir. They fashion the world from his body: of his flesh they make the earth, of his skull the heavens, of his blood the sea, of his bones the mountains and of his hair the trees.

Recorded live in the Chapel of Clare College Cambridge, Wednesday 22nd February 2017
Clare College New Music Ensemble
Conductor: John Tothill

Flutes: Jack Reddick, Heloise Lecomte
Oboe: Marie Louise James
Clarinets: Alex Card, Caroline Grint
Bassoon: Zac Moxon
Horn: James Liley
Trumpets: Ed Liebrecht, Martin Dibb-Fuller
Trombone: Tirion Rees-Davies
Timpani: Finlay Stafford
Percussion: Jordan Murray
Piano': Toby Hession
Violins: James Jones, Anita Monserrat
Alto Saxophone: Matthew Nixon
'Cello: Joshua Ballance
Bass: Graeme Hollingdale

Ymir And Odin (2017)

I: God saw all that He had made (from Genesis 1)
God saw all that He had made, and found it very good. God breathed into man the breath of life. Alleluia. Come to redeem us, O Lord Adonai.

II: Drop down, ye heavens... (from Isaiah 45:8)
Drop down ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness.

Recorded live in the Chapel of Clare College Cambridge, Wednesday 8th March 2017
Clare College New Music Ensemble
Conductor: Graham Ross

Two Antiphons (2017)

A pastiche in the style of Sergei Rachmaninov. 

'Cello: Leo Popplewell
Piano: Toby Hession

Recorded at Clare College, Cambridge on 12th March, 2017.

Elegy for Cello (2017)

Quintet for Piano and Winds
I: Sonate (0:00)
II: Ballade (6:52)
III: Rondo (13:19)

Recorded at Clare College Cambridge, Saturday 5th May 2018

Flute: Jack Reddick
Oboe: Pip Elmer
Clarinet: John Tothill
Bassoon: Zac Moxon

Piano': Toby Hession

This work was never conceived as any sort of explicit pastiche – rather, it serves as a point of confluence between the languages and styles of several different twentieth-century composers, but in particular, four: Malcolm Arnold (1921 – 2006), Francis Poulenc (1899 – 1963), Maurice Ravel (1875 – 1937), and Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 – 1975). From this list alone, it is possible to see that the piece was influenced most strongly by French music – and this becomes even more apparent upon listening. Additionally, these French pretentions are reflected in the spellings of the movement titles – Sonate, Ballade, and Rondo.

The opening movement is robust and heavy, with a generally serious outlook. Its French influence is certainly never far away (the harmony is imbued with fluctuating levels of octatonicism throughout, most prominently in the ‘development’ section), but there is also a nod towards the English folksong trope, as captured especially in the resolute peak of the first subject group. The exposition and development sections are clearly demarcated in the music, but the ‘development’ section perhaps resists playing such a typical role – less-inclined to focus on high-intensity invention, it is instead tasked with sustaining the high musical energy of the quartal codetta.

Rather than being a ‘ballad’ in the textbook poetic sense (i.e. a narrative poem of short stanzas), the second movement is simply a gentle, nostalgic song. It draws upon the etymology of the word ballade, too, from the Provençal ‘balada’, meaning ‘song to dance to’ – and is closely aligned through its lilting 12/8 meter with the Loure, a slow French-Baroque dance originating in Normandy. The Chorale is not consciously based on any pre-existing tune, but adds to the bucolic, folk-like transparency of the music; however, a very conscious tonal scheme does exist in the movement. The opening in D-flat major is followed by a new melodic idea initially in F minor; the Chorale, being in A major, leads back to a restatement of the opening in D-flat major by virtue of a pivot about C-sharp / D-flat. These three tonal regions outline an augmented triad, in which each region is separated from the other by an equal distance. Furthermore, the augmented triad can be extracted from the whole-tone scale – a characteristic mode of early-twentieth-century French music.

To call the last movement a Rondeau (with French spelling) would have been an oversight, since the term refers specifically to one of the forms fixes of fifteenth-century French poetry, and bears very particular structural connotations; Rondo is a term more common in musical usage, and universally understood. The main Rondo theme is practically a homage to the lighter side of Shostakovich, but the movement overall draws more heavily than ever on Poulenc, not just in its harmonic language but also in its patchwork-like structure. It draws together themes from both of the first two movements into a four-minute frenzy of almost unstoppable energy – only the triumphant return to the first-movement theme can succeed in curbing the tempo – and, in direct contrast to the opening movement, the Rondo is deliberately jovial, light and humorous. The return of the ‘B’ theme almost completes a sonata-rondo form – but alas, it is not to be, as at the music breaks down into a final push towards its conclusion.

Quintet for Piano and Winds (2018)

Who really wants to grow up? 

Lyrics:

He's come off the rails for the first time in his life
As the sun set sails across the sky
The moment's come to hide the shame and fly
No time to stop and question why

As you show them how you fly, they'll think that night's become day
Guided by such blinding lights, gazing at you they say

Now here he goes again, our shining hero, watch him take wing
Yeah it must feel so good to not feel a thing
Even the sun can't stop him, they'll never die those beasts will take him far
And when he's done we'll see him in the stars

*HUH*

He's come off the rails, now it's time to pay
There must've been another way
He looked so fine as we watched him fall
The sun came down upon us all

Take it in the mess you made, did you think you had to grow up?
Charging forward blindly with no way to stop

So there he goes again, our shining hero, his fate becomes clear
The poplar trees will weep with amber tears
Even the sun couldn't stop him, and so his sorrow was felt like it was ours
But we'll still see him up there, in the stars

*YEAH*

Fight On

Imagine life

Lyrics:

Stare at empty pages long enough and maybe someday you will see
A life that is worth living full of meaning, friendships, love and family
But mostly it's the silence to keep you company
Nothing in your notebook there to break the lines and set those pages free

So you dance, alone
Fairy lights hung around your home
What is right, what is wrong?
What's the difference in this personal timezone?
Just say goodbye and watch me float away
Leave you all empty
Save it for another day

When are you going to grow up boy, settle down and get yourself a job?
The rent's not going to pay itself, especially when those songs are all you've got
Or maybe go to Spain, learn the language learn to live the Spanish way
Anything is better than just staring at your pages every day

Still you dance, alone
Fairy lights hung around your home
What is right, what is wrong?
What's the difference in this personal timezone?
Just say goodbye and watch me float away
Leave you all empty
It never mattered anyway

They tell me take a step, write the first word and the rest comes naturally
But nothing comes to mind when you're living in a world of apathy

There's a book that I have written somewhere, catching dust, hidden in my mind
There's probably a library, a lifetime of myself still left to find
But I don't know if I have all the means, the will, the strength, even the time
To make it a reality, to fill those empty pages of mine

So I dance, alone
Fairy lights hung around my home
What is right, what is wrong?
What's the difference in this personal timezone?
Just say goodbye and watch me float away
Leave you all empty
But I had nothing else to say

Empty Pages

@WHO @UN @UnitedNations @Talenthouse and use the hashtags: #CovidOpenBrief #UNCovid19Brief #FlattenTheCurve #SafeHands #AloneTogether #ViralKindness #StopTheSpread #Coronavirus #Covid19

Kindness Is Contagious

An Arrangement of a hymn tune composed by Bahram Dehqani-Tafti
All tracks recorded and written by Gabriel Francis-Dehqani

Bahram's Hymn

Two things I didn't know until recently: 1) The original is one of my sister's favourite songs, and 2) To my shame, I had no idea exactly what this song was about until recently...

Hope you enjoy this fabulous arrangement of Paul McCartney's iconic folk-ballad. All parts recorded by me :) 

Microphone: AKG P420
Interface: Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Solo
DAW: GarageBand

Blackbird (arr. Emmanuel Roll)

Aspiring composer of orchestral and chamber music

Blackbird (arr. Emmanuel Roll)

Alex Mackinder

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