'Feathers' is a setting of words taken from Ovid, describing the beautiful song of the Sirens, which lured sailors to their deaths.  My piece was composed for SATB chorus, with solo soprano, singing from offstage.

"Why should it be that they have feathers now and feet of birds, though still a girl's fair face, the sweet-voiced Sirens, golden plumage clothing all their limbs? Yet to reserve that power of glorious song, their melodies' enchantment, they retained their fair girls' features and their human voice".

Feathers

Angelus was commissioned by Duncan Honeybourne for his Contemporary Piano Soundbites series of 2020. The music is published by UYMP, as one of 'Three Pieces for Piano'.

The title was suggested by a line from Bret Harte’s poem ‘The Angelus’: Bells of the past, whose long-forgotten music still fills the wide expanse…
   
For me, one of the effects of the coronavirus lockdown was a heightened awareness of the passing of time; sometimes each day seemed like an eternity, and the days before the lockdown – including the concerts I attended - a very distant memory, although in reality they were still relatively recent.  In ‘Angelus’ I have attempted to create a sense of time passing very slowly, within a miniature form.

Angelus

'Renaissance' dates from the beginning of the first national lockdown in the UK - April 2020 - when all concert activity was brought to an immediate halt by the Covid-19 pandemic.  My musician friends found that all their work had suddenly dried up, and from my own perspective all deadlines, rehearsals, recordings and performances of my pieces were wiped from the calendar. Meaningful creativity effectively dried up too, since – for me, at any rate – much of the motivation to write emerges from those interactions with performers. It didn’t help that pubs, cafes, art galleries, cinemas, theatres and bookshops were also shut, and the internet held little allure after a long day of online teaching. So ‘Renaissance’ was a heartfelt prayer for rebirth, at a time when we could have no real sense of how long it might take for that moment to arrive.

Following a short introduction, passages of quasi-renaissance polyphony alternate with freer, more decorative episodes. The role of the saxophone in 16th century music has been cruelly overlooked!

Renaissance

In 2019 – before the global pandemic and lockdowns which were to begin the following March – I sketched out ideas for a new piece for flute, viola and harp based on notions of isolation and dislocation.  A key feature of the piece was to be asynchronicity; any of the instruments could become independent of the others and play ‘alone’ in a way which didn’t necessarily synchronise with the ensemble.  There are passages in the piece where the ensemble plays together, but also moments where there is no pulse to the music, and where each performer relies on cues from other players to trigger their next move, as if they were acting out some sort of secret musical ritual.  There are other passages where two contrasting tempi are played simultaneously.

When I sat down to start composing the music in March 2020 it wasn’t long before we were in the grip of a national lockdown, and the projected isolation became real.  One unforeseen benefit of those strange times was that I was able to walk around the city where I live in almost complete isolation; I saw details I hadn’t noticed previously, and saw familiar things from new perspectives.  Devoid of people, the city assumed an abstract, almost imaginary quality, and I was reminded of those cities in the fiction of Calvino and Robbe-Grillet which exist only in the minds of their authors and readers.  (The title of this composition is taken from the first line of one of those novels).

This piece is my imaginary city, and you are invited to explore its history, geography, architecture, landscape and sounds as you wander around. 

‘Before I fall asleep, the city, again…’ was first performed by Trilogy Ensemble in an online broadcast from Helmsley Arts Centre, Yorkshire, on 20th March 2021.

(David Lancaster, York, 2021)

Before I fall asleep, the city, again...

A setting of two of John Donne's Holy Sonnets: 'At the Round Earth's Imagined Corners' and 'Death be Not Proud'. The music is for soprano soloist, SATB chorus and small orchestra - the same orchestration as Mozart's Requiem.

Of Trumpets And Angels

From my office and from my home I can hear the bells of York Minster; they punctuate and measure our daily lives, and they remind me when I’m late for an appointment; they can peal out in ecstasy or toll a sorrowful note of doom! These five short pieces have all, to a greater or lesser extent, been influenced by the sound of church bells, or by the change ringing patterns employed by bellringers.

1.	The first Bagatelle takes as its starting point the chromatic second movement of Purcell’s Trumpet Sonata (whose manuscript was discovered in York Minster Library). 
2.	Bagatelle no. 2 is based around a single slow melodic line, dispersed around the ensemble, punctuated by tolling interjections on piano. All the musical material has been derived from change ringing sequences I spotted on the wall of All Saints, North Street, York – the church that also provided inspiration for my choral pieces Apocalypse and At the Edge of the World. 
3.	The third Bagatelle is the most obviously bell-like, with a hocketing melodic line punctuated by dissonant ‘chorus’. Like the second Bagatelle, the musical material is derived from the change ringing number sequence from All Saints, North Street. 
4.	Bagatelle no. 4 is a melody for clarinet based entirely on a descending musical scale, with minimal quasi-clockwork accompaniment.
5.	The final Bagatelle is constructed from very short musical fragments, arranged strictly according to a five-bell change-ringing pattern.

Hell’s Bells Bagatelles were composed sporadically in York between 2017-2022 but brought together as a set in response to a commission for Gemini (directed by Ian Mitchell) from the Late Music concert series.

Hell's Bells Bagatelles

Revelation was composed for seven trumpets and timpani, matching the scoring of Altenburg's famous baroque concerto. The title refers to the final book of the New Testament, and in particular the apocalyptic vision '...and I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets.' Revelation was commissioned by James Stretton for Orichalcum, who gave the first performance in May 2023. This recording was made by James Stretton, playing all trumpet parts.

Revelation

This is 'Frozen', the first song from my song cycle 'Memory of Place', to words by Daniela Nunnari, for baritone and piano.


Frozen (from 'Memory of Place' no. 1)

This is 'Floating', the second of three songs in my song cycle 'Memory of Place' which sets poetry by Daniela Nunnari.


Floating (from 'Memory of Place' no. 2)

A setting of Dylan Thomas' lyric poem 'The force that through the green fuse' for tenor and piano. The poetry considers the effect of time on our lives: it enables us to develop and mature but it ultimately leads to our demise; Thomas also recognizes that we are 'dumb' to address the forces of nature or change the course of our destiny.

The force that through the green fuse - for tenor and piano

Canzone Sospesa explores the way that time passes. It was composed in the summer of 2023 when I was also making a song setting of Dylan Thomas' lyric poem 'The force that through the green fuse...' and both are concerned with the passing of time and how it simultaneously creates and destroys us. At times the music presses relentlessly forward but elsewhere movement seems suspended (even though for the performers the tempo remains constant throughout). Canzone Sospesa was completed in Aulus-les-Bains, high in the Pyrenees - where time sometimes seems to stand still - and was first performed in Teatro dal Verme, Milan, in November 2023 by members of Trio Chimera.

Canzone Sospesa

Inspired by the 'Lady and Unicorn' tapestries in the Cluny Museum, Paris, this extended piece comprises six songs separated by electronic interludes. Words are from the poem 'Ausi conme unicorne sui' by Thibaut de Champagne, (for the song, in modern English, and the interludes in the original early French) and Rainer Maria Rilke (for the narration). During the live performances, images of the tapestries are projected onto a large screen behind the performers, and lighting and costume are deployed to emulate the 'island' on which the lady and her retinue stand in the tapestries.

Mon Seul Desir

Vertigo was composed as a response to Bernard Herrmann's score for the Hitchcock film of the same name, for a premiere performance in the 100th year since Herrmann's birth.  The music comprises five cycles, each of which takes the music in a different direction until the 'Vertigo' music finally appears in the fifth cycle.  The sixth cycle begins but is immediately curtailled to end the piece.

Vertigo

I composed 'Cuba!' for brass band in 2002; this piece was judged to be the winner of the Leeds University/Black Dyke Band composers' competition that year.

Cuba!

On a recent visit to Rome I saw the angel studies of Gian Lorenzo Bernini displayed in the Vatican Museum: five preparatory models made from clay and straw around frames of twisted iron and cane. They still show remarkable detail even though the passage of time has crumbled much of the clay, leaving the metal frames exposed in places. Whilst some parts remain perfectly intact other aspects have now gone, leaving us only able to imagine how they might have looked when complete. In their current form they portray simultaneous processes of growth - since we are able to understand how Bernini created them, and their role in his creative process – but also their evident decay.

My piece is cast in five short, contrasted movements (the five angels, perhaps?), played without a break, and in each I’ve tried to capture something of the fragile incompleteness of the Bernini, and the simultaneous presentation of growth and decay. Each movement begins with a single idea to which other layers are added, but the original idea remains present throughout, serving as the frame around which the structures have been built. Towards the end of each movement the music subsides (or decays) to a single musical idea once again, but not necessarily the one with which it began. 

The five movements overlap slightly to form a continuous musical span in which the senses of decay and re-growth become part of the same process, and (in movements two and four) the added layers deliberately suggest a sort of baroque melodic movement to make the connection with Bernini more tangible in the music’s content, though the notes are entirely my own and there is no quotation of earlier music here.

This recording is from the first performance, given by Amabile (Lesley Schatzberger - clarinet, Nicola Tait-Baxter - cello, and Paul Nicholson - piano) at Late Music, in York, November 2024.

Anatomy Of Angels

Hiraeth is a Welsh word, signifying a longing for a time or place we cannot return to, which may never have existed.  This Piano Trio comprises two highly contrasted musical ideas, fast and slow, which alternate throughout until the work subsides into a long, slow elegy at the close. Hiraeth was composed in the autumn of 2015 for the Albany Trio, who gave the first performance. Piano Trio: Hiraeth is published by UYMP.

Piano Trio: Hiraeth

Apocalypse tells the story of the last fifteen days of the world, as depicted in some of York's medieval stained glass.  This recording differs slightly for the earlier version in that, for this concert, Apocalypse was divided into four distinct 'movements' which were interspersed throughout a continuous programme of music; the whole performance can be seen here http://bit.ly/1r0jRkR  Apocalypse is published by UYMP.

Apocalypse

I composed 'Swan' early in 2011 for saxophone quartet, drawing extensively upon material I had previously employed in 'Suspense' for solo soprano sax but developing beyond the simple processes of the earlier piece. 

Swans, genus Cygnus, are birds of the family Anatidae, which also includes geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe Cygnini.  The word swan is derived from Old English swan, akin to the German Schwan and Dutch zwaan and Swedish svan, in turn derived from Indo-European root  swen (to sound, to sing), whence Latin derives sonus (sound). 

The Black Swan Theory (or Theory of Black Swan Events) is a metaphor that encapsulates the concept that the event is a surprise (to the observer) and has a major impact. The theory was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain firstly the disproportionate role of high-impact, hard to predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance and technology, and secondly the non-computability of the probability of the consequential rare events using scientific methods (owing to the very nature of small probabilities).

Leda and the Swan is a motif from Greek mythology in which Zeus came to Leda in the form of a swan.  As the story goes, Zeus took the form of a swan and raped or seduced Leda on the same night she slept with her husband Tyndareus, King of Sparta.  Leda subsequently bore Helen (of Troy) and Polydeuces, who were children of Zeus, while at the same time bearing Castor and Clytemnestra, children of Tyndareus.

The silver swan, who living had no note,
When death approach'd, unlock'd her silent throat;
Leaning her breast against the reedy shore,
Thus sung her first and last, and sung no more.
Farewell, all joys; O Death, come close mine eyes;
More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.

“Jane was characteristically late, around ninety minutes if I remember correctly.  (Apparently it had taken longer than expected to collect the Alfa from the garage).  But then, quite suddenly, there she was: strikingly blonde, voluptuous, elegant and walking slowly towards me.  ‘Miss Swan?’ I tentatively enquired.  She giggled, twinkled her eyes and took my hand…”


Swan

In 2007 I collaborated with conceptual artist Rory McBeth on some new work for an exhibition at Leeds Art Gallery entitled ‘Depicting the Social Order’, which showed how visual art has been used to portray class divisions in society.  One of the works shown in the exhibition was a dramatic poster which depicted the different classes as a pyramid – not unlike the layers of a wedding cake – with the monarchy (and money) at the top and the workers at the base, supporting the whole edifice.  It made a blunt, naïve statement which haunted me long after the exhibition had ended, and seemed ripe for musical representation.

I began with the intention of making an almost literal ‘transcription’ of the visual image into music, but the musical ideas quickly started to develop a life of their own and the five different strata began to combine and influence one another, although I hope that they are still clearly differentiated.

‘Strata’ was composed in the spring and summer of 2013, and it is published by UYMP.

Strata

Cornelia Parker’s ‘Breathless’ sculpture hangs in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, comprising some fifty old brass instruments which have been crushed flat.  It was commissioned in 2001 by the V&A trustees on the understanding that brass bands no longer existed and had become part of our history.  Parker described that music as ‘part of the robustness we used to have’ and ‘like an anthem which is slowly winding down.’ 

My quintet is in two movements, reflecting the dualities evident in her art: light/dark, silence/noise, upper class/lower class, North/South, death/resurrection etc.  

The movements also mirror the fact that her work (which hangs in a space between two floors) can be viewed from above or below, with polished upper surfaces and tarnished undersides; in my piece the ‘musical objects’ can be encountered from multiple perspectives – a recurring idea in my work.

Parker’s sculpture was designed to hang in a specific location in the museum, just as mine was intended to be played (although hopefully not exclusively!) within a particular space.  The first, quick movement is called ‘Unit’ and the contrasting second is entitled ‘Aria’.

Breathless is published by UYMP

Breathless

My trombone quartet 'Rude Mechanicals' was commissioned by Slidin' About in 2016 - the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.  In the quartet there are two specific references to the bard’s plays: firstly, the work’s title refers to the group of rustic characters who put on a heartfelt performance to conclude A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the link to the sound world of the trombone quartet seemed quite clear in my mind.  When I was close to completing the work in late October 2016 I learned of the passing of my friend and former brass teacher Michael Antrobus to whom I owe a considerable musical debt.  Consequently the coda of the piece (in complete contrast to the rest of the music) is slow and sustained and is prefaced by a famous quotation from Act IV of The Tempest: ‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little lives are rounded by a sleep’.  This final chorale is certainly influenced by Ralph Vaughan Williams’ setting of that same text: Mike loved English music.

Rude Mechanicals

Fallen was composed in the Winter of 2009/10 for a first performance at Canterbury Cathedral the following March, and the vocal score is published by UYMP. It draws upon two pieces of ancient Persian text:

"We have fallen into a place where everything is music" (Rumi)
"Drops that gather one by one finally become an ocean" (Proverb)

This recording was made by the Manchester Chamber Choir.

Fallen

These songs set five poems by David Vogel, a Russian-born poet and novelist who died at Auschwitz in 1944.  The title is derived from Vogel's only published collection of poems (1923).  The Dark Gate was first performed in August 2017, and sheet music is published by UYMP.

The Dark Gate

‘Long After Tonight is All Over’ is a short piece for solo flute.  In it I wanted to explore the dark, fragile quality of the instrument’s lowest register as the player explores a series of short fragments which move in and out of silence.  A lyrical melody does briefly emerge but quickly subsides back into darkness.

The title is borrowed from the ‘Northern Soul’ classic by Jimmy Radcliffe, a favourite at Wigan Casino and one of the last songs played before the building was destroyed by fire in 1982.

This performance was given by Jennifer Cohen at Late Music, York on 7th October 2017.

Long After Tonight Is All Over

I am interested in the application of cinematic editing techniques to musical composition, and several of my previous pieces have explored ideas and techniques borrowed from film making, such as my quintet 'Strike' (which owed a great deal to Eisenstein's theory of montage) and my violin solo 'Rough Cut', premiered in 2016, which is of sort of companion piece to this clarinet solo. 

The jump cut is a type of film editing which gives the effect of jumping forwards in time. It is a manipulation of temporal space using the duration of a single shot, and fracturing the duration to shift the audience ahead; the jump cut abruptly interrupts the passing of time, as opposed to the more seamless 'dissolve' which is used more extensively. The first film to make a feature of jump cuts was Jean-Luc Godard's 'Breathless' (1960), one of the earliest, most influential examples of French New Wave cinema.

Jump Cut was first performed in February 2018 by Zoe Fagerhaug, to whom the piece is dedicated. Jump Cut is published by UYMP.

Jump Cut

From my office and from my home I can see York Minster and hear its bells; it dominates the skyline and is usually the first thing I see when I return to York from a trip.  The ‘grotesques’ are hundreds of carvings on the inside and outside of the building, representing distorted human faces, demons, fantastical creatures and other horrors intended to scare away evil spirits. Some of them are intriguing, others are very rude! Are they modelled on the faces of the craftsmen who built the Minster, or their families, or their masters?  

My intention was to compose a series of grotesques: short pieces with distinctive musical identities, sometimes employing musical distortions (of my own material, or pre-existing pieces associated with the Minster, or the change ringing patterns used by bell ringers) to convey the notion of the grotesque.

There are five Grotesques here, all blended together in one continuous span, allowing the musical characters to form relationships and to explore the possibilities of combination and juxtaposition.

The five grotesques are: 
1)	a squirming melody played in the low register of the flute, 
2)	a quick, spiky and abrasive ‘fanfare’, 
3)	a flurry of descending scales which interrupts the continuity, 
4)	a plaintive melody passed between oboe and clarinet, and 
5)	a sequence of sombre minor chords.

Grotesques was composed in York and Paris during the winter of 2017-18, and it is published by UYMP.

Grotesques

These songs were composed in the spring of 2011 to words by the York-based poet Daniela Nunnari.  There is no narrative thread running through the cycle, in fact the order of songs is left to the performer.  But as the title indicates, all three express the thoughts and feelings of people in various precarious situations.  In ‘Snakes and Ladders’ the protagonist explores the similarities between the ups and downs of a board game with life itself.  ‘The Day the Clocks went Back’ is concerned with the ending of a relationship; this is reflected in the music by the fracturing of the metrical relationship between voice and piano (and the pianists’ two hands).  ‘Submersed’ is an extract from a longer poem; the image of the willow is one which occurs repeatedly in the poet’s work.

Three Songs Of Peril - Complete

Echoes from a Phantom City was composed in 1985 and first performed in London at the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields the following year by the Parke Ensemble; it was subsequently played quite extensively by the ensemble and was choreographed by Bridget Johnson for Cascando.

The title is derived from the novel by Alain Robbe-Grillet (Topology of a Phantom City) in which nothing is quite as it seems: the narrative is fragmented and is punctuated by violence, architectural detail and noir gestures, set in the context of a heavy atmosphere of ambiguity and displacement.

In my score the performers are required to cue one another extensively as if participating in some sort of arcane ritual – in fact the players are dependent upon these visual signals from one another in order to move through the music, and they determine the pace at which the music unfolds.  My piece is built around cyclic patterns and repetition which hopefully suggest glimpses of a larger, three-dimensional structure in the background - Robbe-Grillet’s fantasy architecture, perhaps - but since it can’t ever be captured in its entirety we must rely on recollection and fading memory to recreate it in our minds.

Echoes From A Phantom City

David Lancaster is a composer based in York (UK).  Originally from Wigan, David studied music at the University of York, and was for three years RVW Composer in Residence at Charterhouse.  During that time he won several awards for composition and enjoyed a number of high profile performances.  Following a long period of silence he returned to composition in 2007 and his music has been subject to a dramatic simplification of style in a search for greater clarity of form and expression.  

In November 2013 his Strata was given its first performance by the Orchestra of Opera North; it was recorded for CD by the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra (under Mikel Toms) in June 2015.
In 2014 David’s Vertigo string quartet was performed in Hong Kong and at the Aspen Festival, Colorado and his large-scale choral work Apocalypse - which tells the story of the end of the world as depicted in York’s medieval stained glass - was given its premiere by The 24 conducted by Robert Hollingworth during York’s Festival of Ideas.  (Earlier this year Apocalypse was revived by the Danish Radio Vocal Ensemble at three concerts in Copenhagen and was broadcast by Danish Radio).

In 2015 the quintet Strike was performed in Hong Kong and York and the saxophone quartet Swan was revived in London by the Lunar Sax Quartet.  Premieres included Batubulan for solo piano, Art of War for soprano, oboe and bass trombone, and Public Order for concert band and tape.

His violin solo Rough Cut has been published by UYMP and received its first London performance in February 2016 given by Peter Sheppard-Skaerved; in July Late Music will present the premiere of Breathless, composed for the Orichalcum Brass Quintet. 

In 2016 he completed PhD in Composition at the University of York with Roger Marsh.

Dr David Lancaster is Associate Professor of Composition at York St John University, and is Artistic Director of York's Late Music concert series.

www.davidcomposer.com

David Lancaster

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