(2013) – Piano
Commissioned through the Royal Philharmonic Society Composition Prize and the Alan Horne Memorial Prize, Pearl (II) was written for pianist Clare Hammond and the 2013 Presteigne Festival. The second of a number of ‘Pearls’, the music is written in the same character as the anonymous medieval text from which it takes its name, recounting a fathers grief for his lost daughter:
‘…Yea, many a thought in mind did spring, To think that her radiance in clay should rot. O mould! Thou marrest a lovely thing, My pearl, mine own, without a spot…’
Pearl (c. 14th Century – Anon.) Translation by J. R. R. Tolkien
Pearl (II) was first performed in St Andrews Church, Presteigne by Clare Hammond as part of the 2013 Presteigne Festival.