Music archive entry

Flexible - four melody lines

As its title suggests, this work is in three movements:

• Toccata - Presto
• Berceuse - Adagio
• Nuit Blanche - Allegro

The movements are linked thematically, with the second movement using material taken from the first while the third movement uses a twelve-tone row based on the accompaniment to the opening theme in the second.

The three movements together cover a progression in style, language and mood. The first is extrovert, primarily homophonic and stays largely with "white notes". The second movement is quiet, reflective, contrapuntal and modal in language, although the underlying harmony is sometimes chromatic.

"Nuit Blanche" means 'sleepless night' and this is reflected in the mood of the third movement, which is unsettled and tense in its changing tempi, rhythms and dissonant textures, much of the music being made up of short fragments and motifs. Its central section allows the players some freedom to depart from the written score and create their own mix of 'controlled chaos', while following the overall shape and development of their individual parts.