Score and parts here.

Programme note:

Fanfare for a Newborn Child

The sound of an entire string section playing extremely energetic harmonics is one I have wanted to explore for a while and was the starting point for this piece. The physical effort required sits strangely with the pure high tones produced and will I hope make for an exciting spectacle: fanfares played very loudly but as though from a great distance by imaginary fairy trumpets.

Originally these fanfares were to open the piece, preceded by a short flourish, but this flourish grew and became the bulk of the work. Fragments of melodic lines and fanfares, loops and scales whirl around the orchestra forming a kind of moto perpetuo. The orchestra is used as a continually changing chamber ensemble with the energy level maintained permanently high, but with quiet, sotto voce dynamics for the most part. The only tutti occurs when the various elements are piled on top of each other at the end of the section, which suddenly coalesces into the fanfare proper. Initially sounding as a single pair of 'trumpets', the strings divide into more and more independent parts signalling antiphonally across the sections, until they all arrive on a perfect fourth and a solo bass clarinet dissolves the music back into silence.

Fanfare for a Newborn Child was written as a christening present for my nephew and godson, Andrew O'Reilly.