The Horses

Notes

The music attempts to reflect the vivid theatricality demonstrated in the text of Ted Hughes. I perceive this poem as the struggle between Angels (horses) and forces of evil.

The primary motivic figure in the vocal line on which further variations are based, articulates an Arabic ambience which connotes the mystery, eroticism and charm of wild Arabic horses, expressed here with an intervallic structure of minor seconds, minor and major thirds. Through a lyrical vocal writing, the constant transposition of these intervals results in a continuously changing tonality, which symbolizes restlessness and struggle, set against the piano’s rhythmic variations which imitate the horse’s running pace.

Premiered by Philippa Boyle and Clare Simmonds 27 March 2018, St. James Church, London, UK.

Additional performances by Camille Le Bail and Simon Carrey, 9 May 2018, Salle Cortot, Paris. France.

Fanie Antonelou and Apostolos Palios, 16 February 2019, Municipal Conservatoire of Kalamata, Greece.

Original recording by Harriet Burns and Horacio Lopez Redondo, Rosslyn Hill Chapel, London, UK, 2017.