Ironic

2 Sax, Vibe, Pno, 2 Vln, 2 Vcl, Bs (1999)
16 mins

I?ve never been one for splitting a piece into different movements with different characters. I have a fondness for a single block of music in which I try and sort everything out with as much clarity as I can muster.
This piece is different. It is my first piece to be split into three distinct movements – fast, slow, fast. I wanted music to cross-reference between these movements but the perspectives to change for each one. So the first movement hits the listener straight on, the second movement takes a more distant approach while the last movement sidles up in a disconcertingly underhand manner. It’s hardly a novel way of going about things, in fact it’s a very traditional format, but I?d never done it before and I can now see why it’s been around so long.

This piece was commissioned by the Bath International Festival in 1997 and was premiered by the Graham Fitkin Group on 1 June that year.