Daniel Basford - Four Rossetti Songs

Four Rossetti Songs (Orchestral Version)

2014. Duration 14' approx.

Commissioned by Mid Hertfordshire Music Centre.

I. Dawn on the Night-Journey

II. Love's Last Gift

III. Silent Noon

IV. Remember Me

Scoring

A version for Wind Ensemble is available - click here for info

2 Flutes

2 Oboes

2 Clarinets in B flat; 2nd doubling Bass Clarinet in B flat

2 Bassoons

4 Horns

2 Trumpets

3 Trombones (3=bass)

Tuba

Timpani (3 drums)

Percussion (2 players): 4 Crotales (C6, Eb6, Ab6, Bb6), Glockenspiel, Bass Drum, Tam-tam, Triangle, Pair Cymbals, Suspended Cymbal

Harp

Piano (ad lib., but use is preferred)

Strings

Programme Note

Four Rossetti Songs is conceived as a kind of sequel to my large-scale cantata Night Journey. Indeed, the first movement begins in the same key in which Night Journey ends, as if following on immediately after the cantata. Unlike that work however, each of the Songs functions individually, since they are not designed to describe a single narrative thread across the four movements.

Whilst certainly owing something to the gentle song-writing of English composers - Vaughan Williams and Ivor Gurney in particular - the piece contains much chamber-like scoring and timbral changes within a more pastoral harmonic framework.