Of these three, probably only "To a Mountain Daisy" is usually heard in the mainstream Burns repertoire. While it is in the customary Scots Tongue, the other two that I have chosen are in Standard English, which indeed was the language of much of his work. All three are illustrative of Burns the Son Of The Soil rather than Burns the Patriot or Burns the Political Animal: although today it is possible to ascribe political sensibilities into the two "English" ones, 18th Century Scotland was a very different place from 21st Century Britain. For that reason I think it unwise to assume any political motive in Rabbie's writing of the present pieces. However, if the cap fits today ... 

Robert Burns - To a Mountain Daisy

Hustle and Bustle (2013) is totally developed out of Indian street-sounds. I was done as a soundtrack for a video of Eyglo Hardardottir, but can otherwise stand on its own. Link to the video is at http://vimeo.com/rikhardur/ 

Hustle and Bustle

In memoriam was written in memory of my parents, that died within a short time of each other in 2009. It is an attempt to handle the sorrow and all the other accompanying feelings. The work, like the feelings, is flowing in various directions without much conscious control. The musical language is deliberately developed towards something my parents would have liked, since the piece was written for them.

The work was written between 2009 and 2010 in a flow-of-consciousness style where the ideas went relatively directly to paper, without much deliberation. In memoriam was commissioned by Tinna Þorsteinsdóttir, with support from the Icelandic State Radio.

In Memoriam

Next step in exploring realtime drones ...

Drone4

(A stereo mixdown of a 2D ambisonic piece)

After being part of the rear guard at Gallipoli, my maternal
grandfather was at Beaumont Hamel in 1916; I have never discovered
what he was doing there but as a coal miner he may have had a part in
the Hawthorne Mine.

Unlike so many others he survived the Somme, and made it to
cease-fire, picking up a DCM on the way.  It clearly stayed with him
until his death in 1978, but he was forbidden to talk about it by
grandma.

This piece grew from hearing a string quartet by Laszlo Vidovszky, but
developed to something different.  It is discordant, may be disturbing
and has been described as the wailing of the dead trying to get to
paradise.  Or it is just this piece.

Remembering Corporal William Taylor DCM, Yorks & Lancs, 1887-1978,
and                     Private Albert Arthur Heath, Coldstream Guards, 1896-1915.

11 Nov 2016

In Memoriam: Beaumont Hamel 1916

In the 1914-18 Great War my wife's uncle Alf was too young to get
called up into the army, but he served as a civilian, as the assistant
butcher on the hospital ship Llandovery Castle.

On 27 June 1918 the Llandovery Castle was torpedoed by a German U-boat about 114 miles south west of Fastnet, Ireland, with the loss of 234 people, medical staff, sailors, inmates.  This number includes Alfred James Heath, aged 17

This piece is a companion piece to "In Memoriam: Beaumont Hamel 1916" which remembers Private Albert Arthur Heath, Coldstream Guards, 1896-1915.

Least we forget.

April 2018

114 miles south west of Fastnet (In Memoriam 1918)

John ffitch was definitely born after WWII, in that part of the United Kingdom which is God's own county, certainly educated at an East Anglian university in the sixties, and despite his long hair and lengthening beard, and the uncertain spelling of his name, was never a hippie.  His entire professional career has been as an academic mathematician/computer scientist, and for most of that time he has held the Chair of Software Engineering at Bath, a subject about which he knows little.  His main interests have been in Relativity, Planetary Astronomy, Computer Algebra and LISP, but he has been known to dabble widely, for example in tank warfare, Latin poetry, Arabic linguistics, compilers, and company management, all with some lack of success.  Strangely enough he won the Adams Prize for Mathematics more than 25 years ago.  Hobbies include maintaining Csound, receiving e-mail and complaining about the web. 

Recently retired from my Chair and hoping for more time for music.

In Memoriam: Beaumont Hamel 1916

jpff

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