Score and parts available for hire

My Eleventh is my sixth attempt to write a single movement symphony. My first three symphonies were consciously influenced by Schoenberg’s First String Quartet, where the four classical movements are joined together, and also by the more integrated single-movement form of Sibelius’s Seventh Symphony. My own Seventh Symphony’s shape was much affected by Sibelius’s, and my Eleventh follows on from my Seventh, though its variation form harks back to my First Symphony. It is the shortest of my symphonies, lasting about 17 minutes.

The work began at the 2022 Presteigne Festival, where at an orchestral concert I heard some striking trumpet playing. The next day I wrote a few bars of quiet trumpet solo over a string chord. I didn’t know what to do with this idea, until at the end of the year I thought it might be the beginning of a symphony. But I soon decided to preface it with an allegro D major/minor theme, beginning on violas and moving to 1^st violins. These two ideas form the basis for a set of free variations, which include two scherzos, a slow section and a chaconne that recurs several times. There is also a brief recapitulation of the opening and finally, a slow coda, which ends with a pianissimo D major chord.

While I was writing the Symphony I reread The Lord of the Rings which is probably my favourite book. I have included a brief passage that attempts to evoke Tolkien’s description of the woods in Lórien; there are three horn calls inspired by the horn of Rohan; and the chaconne twice rises to a climax that perhaps refers to a battle, as in my orchestral piece Chaconne, which the BBC Philharmonic played during the composition.

The Symphony is dedicated to Robbie Lamming, dear friend and fellow admirer of Tolkien’s great work.

DM