Shades Lengthen

I have a tendency to begin new pieces by imagining music in quite visual terms. Not in any pictorial or illustrative sense, but in a more abstract way, thinking about foregrounds, backgrounds and planes in between, and considering how different elements within a piece might be made to interact, overlap and sit alongside one another.

While working on this piece I was thinking explicitly about line and shadow. The solo violin is almost always heard distinctly in the foreground, voicing clearly articulated arcing lines of sound. Parts of these lines are often picked up by instruments in the ensemble, ‘shadowed’ and heard again in canon or in stretched elongated forms. The ensemble also creates varied kinds of sound surfaces upon which the solo line and its shadows are cast. Throughout the four movements of the piece there is an overriding obsession with lines in simple rising and falling motions, heard from the violin and threaded through the ensemble at different registers and at varied speeds.

As well as referring to the relationship between soloist and ensemble, I also wanted the title of the piece to evoke a particular quality and mood of evening light, closing of day, when the colours of sky can intensify before draining away. While writing the ending of the piece I was thinking about the subtle sense of acceleration that can be felt while observing the last seconds before sun dips below horizon.

© Edmund Finnis