Instrumentation

fl - pno - vla.vlc

Availability

Score and parts on special sale from the Hire Library

Programme Notes

Il brilgue: les tôves lubricilleux Se gyrent en vrillant dans le guave. Enmîmés sont les gougebosqueux Et le mômerade horsgrave. Frank L. Warrin (after Lewis Carroll) I often find it difficult to come up with titles for pieces – having conceived them in an essentially abstract way, it feels strange to tie them to some piece of art, science or literature from the ‘real world’. When I was doing my usual routine of trawling books and the internet to find a cultural reference that might have a tenuous relation to the way this piece was turning out, I came across Frank Warrin’s French translation of Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky. Jabberwocky is of course filled with nonexistent words that somehow conjure up a strong (if imprecise) sense of meaning and significance. The translation, Le Jaseroque, is thus a translation of a made-up language – masterfully preserving the semantic sense of its nonsense English counterpart. ‘Enmîmés sont les gougebosqueux‘ is a translation of ‘All mimsy were the borogroves‘. It struck me that as composers, it is as if we are operating with a made-up language – none of our material has any objective ‘sense’ or meaning, but in the listener it conjures strong mental and sensual responses – responses that are fuzzily indescribable yet clear and intoxicating. My piece (like most of my other ones) is therefore merely eight minutes of sound and play – like a made-up language a few translations down the line, I hope that the nonsense herein makes some strange and beautiful sense to the listener.

Enmîmés sont les gougebosqueux

Austrian Cultural Forum (London, United Kingdom)

Rowland Sutherland/Rose Redgrave/Alice Purton/Mary Dullea

Enmîmés sont les gougebosqueux

Church of St Vavřinec (Prague, Czech Republic)

Ensemble Konvergence

Enmîmés sont les gougebosqueux

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

Psappha

Enmîmés sont les gougebosqueux

Penrhyn Hall (Bangor, Wales, United Kingdom)

Psappha/Mark Heron