Name: Adam Gorb - Harps of Gold by Composers Edition
Duration: 9 min 41 s
Description: United Kingdom Harp Association, London, 28th November 1993

I began this work in 2008 but set it aside owing to the administrative pressures of my day job, meaning to return to it within a few months. In the event, it was only with lockdown in 2020 that I had the time available to continue and complete the job. The concerto was finished in manuscript short score on 22 June 2021 and orchestration of its three movements took until 07 September. Typesetting came to a merciful end on 21 December.

Covid has meant that the programming of many orchestras, promoters and societies is years behind what had been planned; and this concerto wasn’t a commission: I wrote it because I wanted to, and it’s dedicated to my wife (not for her to play, as she isn’t a violinist). It therefore seems highly unlikely that a live performance will become possible any time soon. With that in mind, I thought I would make publicly accessible a synthetic mock-up of the score (generated by Sibelius software and its associated ‘Note Performer’ sound package), since this is a good deal better than nothing and at least good enough to afford the listener some idea of the music. 

In very broad generic terms the Concerto probably counts as an extension of the English 20th-century pastoral tradition, but it arguably steps outside that categorization in two respects: first, it is far more extensively driven by motivic counterpoint than the ‘English pastoral’ label might lead one to expect, and its themes are variants of one another, deployed in a cyclical fashion across all three movements with the intention of unifying the work as a whole. Secondly, there’s been a bit of Carl Nielsen in my bloodstream ever since I encountered his symphonies in 1973 at the age of 16, and that influence is perhaps detectable, not least in the slow introduction to the expansive first movement (a feature also of Nielsen’s own Violin Concerto) but also in odd corners of the harmonic and tonal language. So this is an English concerto with occasional Nordic undertones.

The slow movement is subtitled ‘Oltrarno’. In 1976 I spent some months living a charmed life in the city of Florence. Oltrarno is the remoter, quieter, outlying district of the city across the river from where the tourists go (Oltrarno means literally ‘beyond the Arno’). In my imagination, in Oltrarno it is always a late afternoon in autumn: odd, since I was never there at that time of year. I wanted to capture the wistfulness of the visitor looking in on the scene from without. In contrast, a moment near the middle of the movement was suggested partly by climbing the steps from the cloister in the Fra Angelico museum at San Marco, nearer the centre of the city, and by being stopped in my tracks at the top of the staircase by Angelico’s 'Annunciation'. For a time I considered naming this work ‘Florentine Concerto’, but for the time being, at least, it goes without subtitle.

The expansive first movement [Andante poco lento ma non troppo - Allegro moderato] lasts some 19 minutes. The slow movement [Andante poco lento] plays for about 11 minutes and the finale [Allegro] for nearly 12.

Violin Concerto (2020 - 21)

Track 7 from the Robert Fokkens portrait CD, Tracing Lines
Performed by Fidelio Trio (Darragh Morgan, Robin Michael, Mary Dullea).

Performance materials available from Composers Edition:
http://composersedition.com/rob-fokkens-mammals-of-southern-africa

Mammals Of Southern Africa, III - Mob Of Meerkats [Sample]

United Kingdom Harp Association, London, 28th November 1993

Adam Gorb - Harps of Gold

Two Lines Transcended						
A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings						
Still Waters								
Humpty Dumpy							
Masquing the Medusa						

Masquing the Medusa is a tribute to my friend and colleague John Casken, and was composed for a concert celebrating his work at Manchester University in January 2008. This short prelude pays homage to him by taking ingredients from two of his compositions and putting them together in my own way. The notes of the melody are taken from the oboe part of Masque and the accompaniment figure stems from a prominent figure in the piano part of Blue Medusa. 

The remaining preludes were composed during the spring of 2009, born from a feeling that Masquing the Medusa needs to be part of something bigger. For me there’s something very tantalizing about miniatures, each offering glimpse of a different world. I think of these as preludes in the Debussian sense; he deliberately placed the titles of each his preludes at the end of the music, so that people would be free to revel in their own associations and imagery, and not be too influenced by his titles. My titles were thought up after composition of the preludes, so I would encourage performers and listeners to do the same here.  

Preview score at: http://composersedition.com/docs/flippdf/ce-rw1fp1/ce-rw1fp1.html#p=1

Five Preludes - piano solo

for clarinet/bass clarinet, piano, violin, cello
Performed by CHROMA
Score and parts available here: http://www.musicsalesclassical.com/composer/work/5087/58097

Adam Gorb - Harps of Gold

Composers Edition

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