"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)

Unplugged started life as a fascination with the late piano sonatas of Alexander Scriabin, whose harmonic language in these works has often been described as an alternative approach to atonality, distinct from the school of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. Scriabin’s harmonies float on the edge of atonality, not as dissonant as his Viennese contemporaries, yet equally unsettled in their ever-changing directionlessness.

With Unplugged, I wanted to capture this idea of spiralling, boundless flux. The piece uses only a very small number of motifs, each stretched and amplified to their maximum throughout the course of the piece, being reimagined and re-framed amid a wash of floating harmonies. Colours slide, transform, and melt together, sounds constantly changing pace and beginning anew. A climax is eventually reached only at the very end, as these ideas solidify into a grotesque march before fading away once more, leaving us back in the realm of the uncertain.

Unplugged

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

Unplugged

Richard English

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