Compositions (Recent / Current)

The Peterborough Canticles
Commissioned by Peterborough Cathedral Old Choristers' Association.
Song of Mary 0:00 , Song of Simeon 05:14
First performance: 8 June 2024.
Tansy Castledine | conductor
Christopher Strange | organ
The Choir of Peterborough Cathedral with members of the Old Choristers' Association

The Peterborough Canticles

Quintet for Piano and Winds
I: Sonate (0:00)
II: Ballade (6:52)
III: Rondo (13:19)

Recorded at Clare College Cambridge, Saturday 5th May 2018

Flute: Jack Reddick
Oboe: Pip Elmer
Clarinet: John Tothill
Bassoon: Zac Moxon

Piano': Toby Hession

This work was never conceived as any sort of explicit pastiche – rather, it serves as a point of confluence between the languages and styles of several different twentieth-century composers, but in particular, four: Malcolm Arnold (1921 – 2006), Francis Poulenc (1899 – 1963), Maurice Ravel (1875 – 1937), and Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 – 1975). From this list alone, it is possible to see that the piece was influenced most strongly by French music – and this becomes even more apparent upon listening. Additionally, these French pretentions are reflected in the spellings of the movement titles – Sonate, Ballade, and Rondo.

The opening movement is robust and heavy, with a generally serious outlook. Its French influence is certainly never far away (the harmony is imbued with fluctuating levels of octatonicism throughout, most prominently in the ‘development’ section), but there is also a nod towards the English folksong trope, as captured especially in the resolute peak of the first subject group. The exposition and development sections are clearly demarcated in the music, but the ‘development’ section perhaps resists playing such a typical role – less-inclined to focus on high-intensity invention, it is instead tasked with sustaining the high musical energy of the quartal codetta.

Rather than being a ‘ballad’ in the textbook poetic sense (i.e. a narrative poem of short stanzas), the second movement is simply a gentle, nostalgic song. It draws upon the etymology of the word ballade, too, from the Provençal ‘balada’, meaning ‘song to dance to’ – and is closely aligned through its lilting 12/8 meter with the Loure, a slow French-Baroque dance originating in Normandy. The Chorale is not consciously based on any pre-existing tune, but adds to the bucolic, folk-like transparency of the music; however, a very conscious tonal scheme does exist in the movement. The opening in D-flat major is followed by a new melodic idea initially in F minor; the Chorale, being in A major, leads back to a restatement of the opening in D-flat major by virtue of a pivot about C-sharp / D-flat. These three tonal regions outline an augmented triad, in which each region is separated from the other by an equal distance. Furthermore, the augmented triad can be extracted from the whole-tone scale – a characteristic mode of early-twentieth-century French music.

To call the last movement a Rondeau (with French spelling) would have been an oversight, since the term refers specifically to one of the forms fixes of fifteenth-century French poetry, and bears very particular structural connotations; Rondo is a term more common in musical usage, and universally understood. The main Rondo theme is practically a homage to the lighter side of Shostakovich, but the movement overall draws more heavily than ever on Poulenc, not just in its harmonic language but also in its patchwork-like structure. It draws together themes from both of the first two movements into a four-minute frenzy of almost unstoppable energy – only the triumphant return to the first-movement theme can succeed in curbing the tempo – and, in direct contrast to the opening movement, the Rondo is deliberately jovial, light and humorous. The return of the ‘B’ theme almost completes a sonata-rondo form – but alas, it is not to be, as at the music breaks down into a final push towards its conclusion.

Quintet for Piano and Winds (2018)

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...to see these things again...

Music: Toby Hession (b. 1997)
Text: Christina Rossetti(1830 - 1894)

Soprano: Olivia Brett
Conductor: Toby Hession
Clare College New Music Ensemble

Recorded in the Robin Orr Recital Room, West Road, Cambridge, April, 2018.

I - Paradise: In a Symbol

Golden-winged, silver-winged,
Winged with flashing flame,
Such a flight of birds I saw,
Birds without a name:
Singing songs in their own tongue
(Song of songs) they came.

One to another calling,
Each answering each,
One to another calling
In their proper speech:
High above my head they wheeled,
Far out of reach.

On wings of flame they went and came
With a cadenced clang,
Their silver wings tinkled,
Their golden wings rang,
The wind it whistled through their wings
Where in Heaven they sang.

They flashed and they darted
Awhile before mine eyes,
Mounting, mounting, mounting still
In haste to scale the skies—
Birds without a nest on earth,
Birds of Paradise.

Where the moon riseth not,
Nor sun seeks the west,
There to sing their glory
Which they sing at rest,
There to sing their love-song
When they sing their best:

Not in any garden
That mortal foot hath trod,
Not in any flowering tree
That springs from earthly sod,
But in the garden where they dwell,
The Paradise of God. 

II - Paradise: In a Dream

Once in a dream I saw the flowers
That bud and bloom in Paradise;
More fair they are than waking eyes
Have seen in all this world of ours.
And faint the perfume-bearing rose,
And faint the lily on its stem,
And faint the perfect violet
Compared with them.

I heard the songs of Paradise:
Each bird sat singing in his place;
A tender song so full of grace
It soared like incense to the skies.
Each bird sat singing to his mate
Soft cooing notes among the trees:
The nightingale herself were cold
To such as these.

I saw the fourfold River flow,
And deep it was, with golden sand;
It flowed between a mossy land
With murmured music grave and low.
It hath refreshment for all thirst,
For fainting spirits strength and rest:
Earth holds not such a draught as this
From east to west.

The Tree of Life stood budding there,
Abundant with its twelvefold fruits;
Eternal sap sustains its roots,
Its shadowing branches fill the air.
Its leaves are healing for the world,
Its fruit the hungry world can feed,
Sweeter than honey to the taste
And balm indeed.

I saw the gate called Beautiful;
And looked, but scarce could look, within;
I saw the golden streets begin,
And outskirts of the glassy pool.
Oh harps, oh crowns of plenteous stars,
Oh green palm-branches many-leaved—
Eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard,
Nor heart conceived.

I hope to see these things again,
But not as once in dreams by night;
To see them with my very sight,
And touch, and handle, and attain:
To have all Heaven beneath my feet
For narrow way that once they trod;
To have my part with all the saints,
And with my God.

...to see these things again... (2018)

'Soliloquy' is a transcription of an improvisation I gave in 2017 between performances of two American spirituals. It unfolds over a constantly-held low E-flat, and gently meanders between deceptively complex time signatures such as 13/8 and 9/16. The score itself is still a work in progress at the time of uploading this - I plan to evolve the work into a more complex 'indeterminate' structure, whereby the performer can not only perform a number of component 'sections' in any order, but also freely improvise themselves on the basic material given. This recording was taken from the first 'performance' - a performance that was semi-improvised itself.

Soliloquy (2018)

Triptych
for Solo Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra

I: Rhapsody (0:00)
II: Fanfare (7:57)
III: Rondo (12:32)

Recorded in the Robin Orr Recital Room, West Road Concert Hall, 14th June 2019

Clarinet: John Tothill
Conductor: Toby Hession
Clare College New Music Ensemble

Triptych (2019)

... one holy light, one heavenly flame

Text: Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)

Commissioned by Choir & Organ Magazine

Recorded at Choral Evensong in the Chapel of Clare College, Cambridge, 26th January, 2020

The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge
Conductor: Graham Ross
Organ: Ashley Chow

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... one holy light, one heavenly flame (2019)

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Toby Hession (b. 1997) is a British conductor, collaborative pianist and composer, currently on the Music Staff of Scottish Opera. He trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (Opera School 2019-21) and is a prize-winning graduate of Clare College, Cambridge (BA 2015-18 and MPhil 2018-19). He is a proud alumnus of the Georg Solti Accademia and Chetham's School of Music.

Toby's music is published by Edition Peters, and has been recorded and performed around the world by ensembles including The King's Singers, Voces8, The Aurora Orchestra, The Phoenix Chorale, Ensemble Perspectives, The National Youth Chamber Choir of Great Britain, Inner Voices, and the Choir of Clare College Cambridge. 

For enquiries, visit www.tobyhession.com

The Peterborough Canticles

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