Danny Deever, Op. 13 (1981) for baritone vocalist, trombone, timpani & piano. Poem by Rudyard Kipling. Singer: Derek B. Scott. Performance recorded at Logie Theatre, Stirling.

Danny Deever, Op. 13 (1981)

Six settings  for low voice and piano of poems from Thomas Hardy's Poems of the Past and the Present (1901): 'To Lizbie Browne', 'The Darkling Thrush', 'The Tenant for Life', 'The Levelled Churchyeard', 'The Ruined Maid', and 'To Life'.

To Life

The Ruined Maid

The Levelled Churchyard

The Tenant for Life

The Darkling Thrush

To Lizbie Browne

An orchestral piece in two sections, both having a moto perpetuo character and both containing 24 iterations of a transposing chaconne pattern. The tempo remains the same for an eighth note beat in both parts. The first section is based on a three-chord sequence, initially G-flat major, A-flat diminished, G major. The second section has a six-chord pattern, initially C-sharp minor, B-flat minor, E-flat minor, C major, G minor, A-flat augmented. Besides transposing, this chaconne also subject to overlapping. Each section possesses a cross-rhythmic character: 3/2 and 6/4 in section one, and 4/8 and 5/8 in section two. In early minimalist music, the question used to be, 'Where is beat one?' In this piece, the question is, 'Where is beat two?' Originally written for eight players in 1995, it was revised for full orchestra in January 2005, and revised again in 2018–19. The first section had its origins in a setting of Swinburne’s “A Leave-Taking,” and the second in my discarded Guitar Concerto of 1981. A piece based on a repeated group of harmonies is usually described as a 'chaconne'. I took the term 'chacony' from acomposition by Henry Purcell.

Chacony For Orchestra, Op 24 (2005)

This overture was written in 1975 for a musical tour of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Humberside by KANON, a small orchestra conducted and co-founded by the composer, which specialized in the performance of twentieth-century music. The overture’s skittish main theme is turned upside down and used as a fugue subject for the middle section. At the climax, material from the introduction reappears which now also reveals its thematic kinship with the fugue subject. Various contrapuntal techniques are involved, but the overall effect is intended to be exuberant rather than dryly academic.

Fugal Overture, Op 6 (1975)

This short tone poem for orchestra is based on music composed for Erik Knudsen’s film Brannigan’s March in 2003. The film has been shown at cinemas in Manchester, London and elsewhere, and it concerns the journey, both physical and spiritual, of a man who leaves his home and family after being made redundant. The tone poem attempts to convey the emotional dimension of the journey, rather than depicting Brannigan’s travels in town and country. For this reason, the reference to ‘march’ in the film’s title has been dropped. The first performance was given by the Salford Symphony Orchestra, conductor Barrie McKinnon, 24 October 2004.

Brannigan's Journey, Op. 30

A waltz based on a theme composed around 1984, while enjoying a holiday in a cottage in Kirkliston. Although it is a slightly spooky waltz, this is not intended to imply Kirkliston has anything in common with Inspector Barnaby's country town of Causton in Midsomer.

Derek B. Scott

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