‘A virtuoso stunner of a piece.’ ​ The Times

Instrumentation

picc.ob.bcl.cbsn - hn - 2 vln.vla.vlc.db

Availability

Facsimile score 0-571-50993-2 on sale, parts for hire

Programme Notes

Suns Dance, composed between December 1984 and July `985, is a bright counterpart to my Night’s Mask for soprano and seven instruments (written a year earlier) and shares much material with that piece.  In Night’s Mask an overall very slow tempo is interrupted by two very fast episodes, and Suns Dance takes this fast music as a starting point, its dominant mood being one of energy.  Within a formal scheme of continuous variation (and very little recapitulation) there is an alternation of extended tuttis and concertante solos, the most notable of these being for contrabassoon, oboe, horn and viola in the first half of the piece, and, just before the coda, piccolo and double bass.

Reviews

‘The immediate and lingering impression of this 17-minute piece is its extraordinary energy, which seems to be limitless and has as its source the harmonic and rhythmic vigour of its generating motivic ideas and the imaginative, unusual tonal combinations … a fabric of intricate, nervy detail, shot through with vibrant colours and with arrestingly elaborate instrumental activity, which, though it whizzed by at the most exhilarating speed, had a clear sense of direction and structure.’
The Daily Telegraph (Geoffrey Norris), 13 October 1985
 
‘… a virtuoso stunner of a piece.’
The Times (Paul Griffiths), 25 March 1988

Suns Dance

Britten Studio (Snape, Suffolk, United Kingdom)

Ulysses Ensemble/Geoffrey Paterson

Suns Dance

5pm

Rose Theater, Lincoln Center (New York City, NY, USA)

Orchestra of St. Luke's/Pablo Heras-Casado

Find Out More

Suns Dance

St Gregory's Centre for Music, Canterbury Christ Church University (Canterbury, Kent, United Kingdom)

RCM New Perspectives/Tim Lines

Suns Dance

Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall, Royal College of Music (London, United Kingdom)

RCM New Perspectives/Tim Lines

Suns Dance

Cosmo Rodewald Concert Hall, University of Manchester (Manchester, United Kingdom)

Vaganza/Jamie Phillips