Music archive entry

Cuzco was the central city of the Inca Empire from the 12th century until the early 16th century when the Spanish 'conquered' much of South America. Positioned in the southern Peruvian Andres, Cuzco was the physical and cosmological centre of the Inca race and culture.

Cuzco Sketches is the second movement of a five movement wind quintet entitled 'Premonition', which attempts musically to scrape the surface of the astrologically predicted doom of the Inca race. The music uses a system whereby each note in the chromatic scale is assigned a letter of the alphabet, e.g. a = a, a sharp = b. Using this method, the words 'Inca' and 'Spain' form the two central chords in the piece. Beyond this starting point however the music was instinctively composed to represent the glory, mystery, and wonder of the ancient destroyed city of Cuzco.