Solo piano (2013)
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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.
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