"Noirs" was inspired by the works of Chinese artist 于轶文 and conjures different shades and textures of black. Rather than treating it as an absence of colour, "Noirs" creates a musical blackness that hangs over a something that can only ever be faintly made out.  

Performed by the Oxford Philharmonic on 10th February 2018.
(2.2.2.2, 2.2.0.0, timp, 1 perc, str)

Noirs (for Chamber Orchestra)

This three-movement orchestral work began life as the standalone piece Into the Void, written for a composition workshop and subsequently selected for a public premiere by the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra. On completing this piece, I felt that its ending left something more to be said, as if the music was creeping across the final barline and inviting me to further explore the ideas presented there. On receiving a commission from Fantasia Orchestra for a new composition, I jumped at the chance to expand upon Into the Void, reorchestrating this short piece and fashioning it into the first movement of the larger-scale Visions of Odysseus, conceived as a form approximating an instrumental sonata yet not quite carrying the weight of a fully-fledged symphony. The titles of both the entire work and the first movement are a sort of inside joke referring to the manner in which they were composed; whilst on the surface they both refer to romantic ideas of voyaging and travelling into the unknown, they are in reality more earthbound in origin. Indeed, Visions of Odysseus is a reference to sirens, both in the mythological sense but also more literally in the everyday noise of our towns and cities: one of the fundamental motifs throughout the work’s three movements originated in the sound of clashing sirens ringing across Oxford.
	The first movement opens with a slowly pulsating dissonant texture, from which a searching clarinet melody emerges, the main theme of the movement. This theme is interrupted three times, each time gaining in energy until the culmination, a soaring melody and a full orchestral tutti, is reached. As this dies away, a new fast idea is introduced, moving the music forward in nervous intrepid energy. This reaches a climax once more, and the opening material emerges transformed. The movement dies away in whispers of the faster material from the central section. The second movement, a cross between a scherzo and a slow movement, opens with a mysterious oboe solo over a shimmering carpet of fast-moving strings. This melody returns continuously, but appears lost, unable to burst forth and instead speeding up until it is silenced. After this brief moment of peace, a violin solo introduces a slow, thoughtful melody, but this too accelerates and is cut off. A hurried fugue ensues to continue the scherzo element of the movement, but the music begins to collapse under its own weight, growing more and more grotesque until the opening material bursts through. A brisk final flourish closes the movement. The final movement begins with an expansive, bleak soundscape, slowly thickening in texture until a lone cello begins to sing a mournful tune. Hints of life begin to appear, with a more animated figure appearing in the violins and subsequently passing through the strings, and the music appears to be growing towards a jubilant finale. This soon gives way, however, to a reprise of the sounds of the opening of the first movement, and the ending collapses into a desolate closing chord, with detuned cellos and basses rumbling in the depths.

I. Into The Void

Composer and double bassist based in Birmingham. Studying a master's in double bass performance at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

I. Into The Void

Richard English

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