Mannequin Losses

Notes

This piece is inspired by Fernando Pessoa’s poem, I heard it told that once in Persia, which, in my view mirrors the ongoing brutal war and plotting by indifferent dictators quite close to home, like a game of chess. Different sonorities are explored through static harmony, based on the cluster of the four notes – C, Db, Eb, Fb – and its disrupting D natural. It appears inert and sacred at first and then mutates into more aggressive gestures.

Written for the Hermes Ensemble workshop at the University of Birmingham.