Hilary Tann Catalogue

Small Orchestra

Small Orchestra Adirondack Light Small Orchestra Narrator and chamber orchestra Hire score and parts 9780193859227 Composed for the commemoration of the centennial of the Adirondack Park, Adirondack Light contains ‘windows’ into four Adidonack folksongs, with strong images of water and travel. The text is adapted from the poem, ‘A Lesson from the Hudson River School: Glens Falls, New York, 1848’ by Jordan Smith. 19 minutes as ferns String orchestra Hire score and parts 9780193858695 Written for the Orchestra of Princeton University, this is an evocative, slow movement for string orchestra. 9 minutes Toward Dusk Piccolo, flute and string orchestra Hire score and parts 9780193864498 Toward Dusk is an arrangement of the last movement of Tann’s Water’s Edge (for piano duet). Echoes of the material of the other two movements are heard during the piece. 4 minutes With the heather and small birds Chamber orchestra Hire score and parts 9780193859593 A celebratory overture for chamber orchestra influenced by the high plateau of central Wales. The piece takes its title from a translation of a poem by Welsh bard, John Ceiriog Hughes (1833-1897) ‘efo’r grug a’r adar man’. For the composer, this imagery transported her back to her childhood in the coal-mining valley in where she grew up, filled with a sense of freedom, ancientness, and song of the skylark. Anecdote Cello and orchestra Full Orchestra Hire score and parts 9780193859548 A soliloquy for cello and full orchestra, Tann was initially influenced by the poem Anecdote of the Jar by Wallace Stevens. The cello is ‘surrounded and complemented by the various orchestral textures (especially those of the central string quartet).’ Throughout this slow, one-movement work, the soloist “has dominion”. An anecdote is often a story shared, and shared again, in intimate circumstances. And so, the overall structure of the piece is that of an arch in which a personal story is told, and elaborated on, and retold. 14 minutes Fanfare for a River Full orchestra Hire score and parts 9780193863866 A fanfare for orchestra, featuring brass played from a balcony. The ideas for the work were formed during visits to Knoxville along the Tennessee River, in an aread which had been transformed into a park called “Volunteer Landing”. The fanfare was influenced by a statement which was carved into the pavement near the entrance to the park - “Like a river flowing, past merges with present to become our future” (Wilma Dykeman). 4 minutes From Afar Full orchestra Hire score and parts 9780193860278 From Afar refers to Tann’s memory of four months spent studying Japanese music in Kyoto in 1990. Propulsive rhythms in the percussion juxtapose with a meditative section. 20 minutes 10 minutes 6

From the Feather to the Mountain Full orchestra Hire score and parts 9780193868854 ‘Walking’ passages (with hints of New York folksongs) link the three main sections: ‘Cloudscape’, ‘Landscape’, and ‘Mountainscape’ in this through-composed piece. The image of the title comes from a recorded statement by artist Arnie Bittleman: “I found a feather while walking down a road. The feather, if you look closely, has a landscape, a cloudscape in it.” 13 minutes The Grey Tide and the Green Full orchestra Hire score and parts The Grey Tide and the Green was commissioned for the Last Night of the Welsh Proms 2000. Recalling the lichencovered, low stone walls in Tann’s childhood home in Ferndale, Wales, this work is also influenced by R.S. Thomas’ short poem ‘Boundaries’. The imagery Thomas describes in the poem draws out the textural contrasts which underlie the piece as a whole - contrasts between fast string-dominated passages (“moorland”), resonant brassdominated passages (“stone boundaries”), an bell-like sections (“cathedrals”). 11 minutes Here, the Cliffs Violin and orchestra Hire score and parts 9780193861220 Hilary Tann was inspired to write Here, The Cliffs by Craig Cerrig-gleisiad, a striking rock formation near her home in South Wales. The single movement work is in a Vivace- Adagio-Vivace structure. The soloist enters beneath the high, bright sound of the opening, and leads the orchestra into a light, fast Vivace. The central Adagio is developed from the falling mist idea, shrouded in mystery and great sadness as the low, dense mist curls downward over rocks. When the Vivace returns it is transformed as its conclusion by the powerful re-emergence of fragments of the Adagio. 16 minutes In the First, Spinning Place Alto saxophone and piano/full orchestra/wind orchestra Alto saxophone and piano 9780193369108 Hire score and parts - full orchestra 9780193863057 Hire score and parts - wind orchestra 9780193409590 In the First, Spinning Place was inspired by Dylan Thomas’s exuberant poem ‘Fern Hill’. The first section of the concerto is a light, dancing movement, the second section contains echoes of Welsh hymnody, and the third section is a fast, scherzando finale where the soloist sets the whole orchestra “spinning”. 12 minutes The Open Field (In memoriam Tiananmen Square) Full orchestra Hire score and parts 9780193858534 A strong feature of this work is the celebratory brass fanfare, but while writing this Tann heard of the events of Tiananmen Square in June 1989 and changed the nature of the piece to something darker and more reflective. The reference to the open field was inspired by a Robert Duncan poem entitled ‘The Opening of the Field’ - “often I am permitted to return to a meadow, as if it were a scene made-up by my mind, that is not mine , but is a made place”. 11 minutes Sarsen Full orchestra Hire score and parts 9780193865679 Sarsen, in three movements, was inspired by particular standing stones or ‘sarsens’, moving from natural wilderness, (Adirondack Mountains, New York) to stylized formality (Rock in the Garden of the Master of the Nets in Suzhou, China), and finally, ceremonial (Avebury, UK). Each of the movements may also be performed separately. 11 minutes Through Echoing Timber Full orchestra Hire score and parts 9780193859074 A celebratory fanfare-overture, the title is taken from Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem, ‘Spring’. This short, dramatic piece features a prominent part for brass. 4 minutes Full Orchestra 7