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Cover

Night Music

solo piano, flexibly scored ensemble and live electronics

Ed Hughes

How to buy

979-0-57036-684-2 Night Music – Score Available at MusicRoom Buy now (£13.95)
979-0-57036-685-9 Night Music – Parts On hire On hire

Description

Night Music is the second instalment in a cycle of works called collectively Shadows of Destruction. The cycle responds to images drawn from collections in the Imperial War Museum, with a particular focus on the effects of the aerial campaign in World War II as recorded by RAF cameras.

The work is in three parts:
Part 1 - 'Flowing' - The piece is largely governed by a 5/8 metre. The melody at times floats freely over the bar lines to create an impression of eliding and shifting surfaces.
Part 2 - 'Machine song' - This movement explores musical gestures of descent and ascent; tension between the music's mechanistic and lyrical qualities; disruption as conflicting scales are brought together and complex harmonies are cross-cut with occasional moments of transparency.
Part 3 - 'Night toccata' - A rapid study which explores the full range and registers of the piano, at times exploring some harmonies obsessively while at certain moments breaking through to passages of pure textures, rhythms and clusters.

Commissioned by Norman Jacobs, artistic director of Music Of Our Time, with funding support from the RVW Trust.

The music can be performed as a concert piece, or as an accompaniment to the silent moving images.

Details

Categories
Duration
14 minutes
Premiere

Joseph Houston (piano), University of Sussex Symphony Orchestra, Brighton Science Festival ('Music for Curious Minds' series), All Saints Church, Hove, 12th February 2015

Scoring
1 Piano, 1 Live Electronics, 1 Unspecified Ensemble
Composition date
2015

Recordings

Symphonic Visions - music for silent films by Ed Hughes Clare Hammond, New Music Players, Orchestra of Sound and Light, Richard Casey 1st February 2018

Performances

25 September 2015 The Warehouse, Theed St., Waterloo 25 September
24 September 2015 The University of Sussex
26 February 2015 University of Cambridge Recital Room
23 February 2015 Jacqueline du Pre Music Building, Oxford
12 February 2015 Brighton Science Festival / Music of our Time, All Saint's Church, Hove
7 February 2015 Frederic Chopin Conservatoire, Paris
31 January 2015 Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast
22 January 2015 University of Sussex Lunchtime Concerts