OUP Women Composers Orchestral, Opera, Chamber, Instrumental and Choral Catalogue

Cecilia McDowall Are we

Cecilia McDowall Are we on the same page? String quartet Score and parts 9780193373679 Written as the test piece for the CAVATINA Intercollegiate String Quartet Competition, this short piece gives ensembles an opportunity to display creativity by allowing experimentation with texture, dynamics, and articulation. 3 minutes The Blackbird Wind quintet and opt. voice Score and parts 9780193378322 The Blackbird is a beautiful arrangement of a Welsh folksong. English translation by Margery Hargest Jones. 5 minutes Rousseau’s Execution Two violins and viola Score and parts 9780193390775 This work for string trio is inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Dictionnaire de Musique, with each of the three movements initiated by one of Rousseau’s musical entries. 9 minutes Small Ensemble Subject to the weather Wind quintet Score and parts 9780193378292 Subject to the Weather draws inspiration from the Welsh folk song The Blackbird and references Wesley’s hymn tune Aurelia: The Church’s one Foundation. The music evokes country life and birdsong in a charming, engaging style. 5 minutes 58

Orchestral/Larger Works Crossing the Bridge String orchestra Hire conductor’s score and parts 9780193386860 The title of this work comes from a haiku by the poet Alan Spence: ‘crossing the bridge - the other side is lost in mist’. The opening movement, ‘Mostar’, refers to the single arch stone bridge in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, which became a symbol of peace and hope in the late 1990’s. The middle movement, ‘London Bridge’, takes the last phrase of ‘Mostar’ as its opening, exploring the darker tones of the lower instruments, and the first bar of ‘Brooklyn Bridge’ as its close. The third movement opens with a bright, staccato texture, and is in the shape of a palindrome or arch. 11 minutes Great Hills Violin solo, two solo flutes, and string orchestra Hire conductor’s score and parts 9780193366435 A pastiche on baroque techniques, this varied work is ideal for amateur orchestras. It is a concertante written as a companion piece to Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4. Taking its title from the poem The South Country by Hilaire Belloc, Great Hills is inspired by the locality of Shipley, the connections are pastoral, historic, literary, and musical. 12 minutes Rain, Steam, and Speed Chamber orchestra Hire conductor’s score and parts 9780193407787 The composer’s inspiration for this work was the Turner painting of the same name that depicts a broad gauge engine steaming across Maidenhead Viaduct. Cecilia McDowall conveys a feeling of wide open spaces and pastoral repose in the opening section. From out of the calm, a clear rhythmic motif, pianissimo at first, rattles to a full orchestral crescendo, then gradually fades from view. 10 minutes Seventy degrees below zero Tenor solo and orchestra Hire conductor’s score and parts 9780193387256 Commissioned by the Scott Polar Research Institute and City of London Sinfonia as part of the Scott 100 Festival of Events, 2012. Seán Street was specially commissioned by the composer to write two poems for Seventy degrees below zero to sit alongside extracts from Robert Falcon Scott’s Journals and Scott’s letter addressed, ‘To my widow.’ Set in three movements—‘We Measure’, ‘The Ice Tree’, and ‘To My Widow’ —McDowall’s music creates a soundscape set in the icy plains of the Antarctic, with a poignant finale as Scott writes to his wife for the last time. 15 minutes Theatre of Tango Baritone, solo violin, and chamber orchestra Hire conductor’s score and parts 9780193378872 Theatre of Tango begins with ‘The Dance’, which is full of rhythmic intensity and passion. This is contrasted by the haunting, spectral-like second movement,’ Ghost Light’, in which tubular bells and plucked strings contrast with high strings and lyrical voice line. The third movement, ‘A Tango of Time’, is perhaps the most clearly underpinned by the Argentine tango. With shades of menace and ruthlessness in this movement, Time steers its course towards an inevitable end. Texts by Seán Street. 17 minutes Cecilia McDowall 59