Score and parts in preparation

In January 2025 I decided to write a short orchestral piece to celebrate the arrival of spring. It begins with an oboe solo played over the gentle accompaniment of harp, celesta and crotales. Near the close of this introduction comes the song I heard in late January from a Dunnock, on piccolo, a series of trills with an upward leap which I was able to notate almost precisely. The faster music that follows, on woodwind and then on strings, is twice interrupted by a Chiffchaff, which I first heard on my birthday, 9 March. In between the two Chiffchaffs, a solo trumpet plays a confident melody, which is taken up by the violins. After two fanfares on brass, the strings hold a long-sustained chord, over which a solo clarinet plays the song of a Blackbird, whose first two three-note phrases are the notes I heard from a Blackbird singing in our Kent garden in late February. The mood of the opening music then returns; we hear the Dunnock again, and Early Spring ends with its initial oboe solo.

   Early Spring is dedicated to my friend Kenneth Woods and his English Symphony Orchestra.

DM