Written for the Royal Academy of Music, in celebration of their 200th anniversary
Instrumentation: viola solo
Duration: c.14’
First performance: TBC
Her Lullaby
For several years, every night I would sing to my young children, sometimes for hours. Folksongs, songs made up on the spot, verse after verse, anything that could maintain a calm continuity of circling sound. (So many folksong plots are not the stuff of good night tenderness, but I sang them anyway.)
And then the children didn’t need the songs any more. Which was in many ways a relief, but really I miss that calm timeless space of song gentling the night. The deep listening required of the solo performer in Her Lullaby – pitching the justly-tuned intervals, allowing the the harmonies to fuse in the body of the instrument, finding the right durations for each sound – alongside the strophe-by-strophe near-improvised extension of the melody recall for me those special times I spent with my children when they were very young, singing them across the border from wakefulness to sleep.