Name: Episodes From An Imaginary Opera by Jasper Eaglesfield
Duration: 11 min 9 s
Description: Winner of the Royal College of Music composer's concerto competition, performed on 9th February 2023 by the RCM New Perspectives Ensemble.

Winner of the Royal College of Music composer's concerto competition, performed on 9th February 2023 by the RCM New Perspectives Ensemble.

Episodes From An Imaginary Opera

Eejit Son premiere @ Bang on a Can loud weekend

perfect

A reflection on Palestrina's 'Assumpta est Maria a 6'
Commissioned by Suzi Digby and the ORA Singers
Performed and recorded at the Dora Stoutzker Hall at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, Cardiff, October 2025

Rather than using a totalising, self-contained system to reflect Palestrina’s composition, Assumpta est Maria takes a collage-like approach to reflection, using several elements from the original piece as separate starting points. Structurally, for example, Assumpta est Maria mirrors the two distinct characters of Palestrina’s form: the opening section is one of gentle ebbs and flows; in the second section, the piece is flung into a dancing triple metre. Meanwhile, the melodic lines in Palestrina’s music provide a rich palette of material. Fragments of the opening melody of the original piece appear several times throughout Assumpta est Maria, manifesting perhaps most explicitly as a cantus firmus underneath the lilting upper voices in the second section. At other points, strings of pitches borrowed from the original piece appear in subtler configurations, with harmonic fabric woven from verticalised arrays of Palestrina's melodies. After a final affirmation that reworks and saturates Palestrina’s setting of ‘laudantes benedicunt Dominum’, the music lingers, withdraws, and then vanishes.

Assumpta est Maria (2025)

02 02 To swing, swing, swing

Composer from Hertfordshire. Fun big things and silly little things.

Contact: jasper@eaglesfields.co.uk

Episodes From An Imaginary Opera

Jasper Eaglesfield

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