The Southwark Consorts of Winds

The following music we have played is available from the composers

• John Holland - Like a Twisty Turny Thing
• Martin Read - "...no full legal advice"
• Liz Lane - Turnabout
• Marisol Gentile - In B
• Benjamin Wardhaugh - Hill on a Walk
• Natalia Solomonoff - Plumas de Cobra Azul
• Luis Menacho - La curvatura de A
• Dante Grela - Lejanos Reflejos - Distant Images
• Alan Taylor - In Remembrance of a Passing Generation
• Giles Brindley - The Four Temperaments
• Paul Burnell - 5 pieces for wind instruments
• Andrew Melvin - Marche Futile

A short, but frantic, movement suitable for occasions of extreme silliness or indeed, highbrow seriousness... Inspired by the little twisty, turny things in life that make it seem more fun, like roller coasters, country roads, or fusilli.

...no full legal advice was written for the Southwark Consort of Winds. During the performance, fragments of an article - which appeared in The Independent newspaper on 11 March, 2005 with the headline Iraq war revelation: There was no full legal advice, together with fragments of another article - Iraq war is blamed for starvation - which appeared in The Guardian newspaper on March 31, 2005, are muttered by the players.

The main building blocks for the piece are i) the juxtaposition of three modes - dorian on F, mixolydian on Ab and aeolian on F. All three modes share most of the same notes [a pentatonic scale on Ab], however what colours each mode - and creates the tension in the piece, is the use of either Db or D and either Gb or G. This can be seen at the outset in the introduction, with alto saxophone and bass clarinet sometimes playing one note and then changing it in the next phrase; & ii) the fact that we 'like to belong'. The instrumental ensemble has been divided into three groups, each with an identity. Individuals can often be influenced by others - to a greater or lesser degree, or they never change.

I was commissioned to compose a piece for the Southwark Winds Ancient and Modern Consort in the summer of 2004 and looked forward to the challenge of writing for this unusual combination of instruments. I was particularly interested in how the ensemble could be grouped into blocks of sound using different combinations, in particular the woodwind versus brass with the alto saxophone taking an independent lyrical role in the middle. The work was partly built around this and the tutti ensemble is not heard until over halfway through the piece.

I began writing Turnabout at the beginning of 2005 shortly after starting my PhD studies in composition at Cardiff University, having just finished teaching A level music. Bach Chorales were much on my mind as I had taught them for several years and I was aware of how they had epitomized Western harmony for several centuries. I thought it would be fun and interesting to include a contemporary version of a chorale, almost to get them out of my system! In fact, I included two, both closely related to each other and they are at the heart of this work.

There is also a waltz - although you couldn't dance to it because of the irregular time signature. Later in the piece the two styles combine, and it is this contrast and development that inspired the title.

This piece was written for Southwark Consorts of Winds, and is dedicated to the ensemble. Marisol Gentile is the director of the Ensamble Rosario, in the city of Rosario, and organises many events there for the promotion of new music. She teaches conducting, and teaches and performs viola.

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This piece was written in autumn 2004 in response to a commission from Southwark Consorts of Winds, and represents something of a new direction in my compositional thinking. The ambiguity of the title is intentional - is the hill walking or being walked on? - and the 'walk' refers to the structure of the piece. Sometimes the walk refers to a previous location; sometimes it moves in an unexpected direction, but there are unexpected reversals or changes of perspective as new vistas open up. A small amount of musical material is constantly reinterpreted: in a sense it is the opening flute melody which goes on a walk.

If the players are seen as two quintets, the relationship between the two shifts from generally cooperative to generally antagonistic during the central section, and the resulting tension is not resolved.

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The snake, and especially the cobra, are seen as symbolic animals of great ambiguity in their meaning. In several pre-colombian cultures, the image of the plumed serpent, which combines the symbolic qualities of birds and snakes, is of great importance as a symbol of the union of opposites.

The piece is composed of ideas containing different elements. These follow one another, and are superimposed on one another. As in the symbolic image of a plumed serpent, the piece deals with the unification of opposites and the generation of a cyclical structure.

The title of this piece, "The Curvature of A" gives little away about this 3 minute piece described by the composer as "very expressive'. Luis Menacho is a teacher of composition in the School os the Arts in Berisso, a city to the south east of Buenos Aires. The school seeks to give opportunities for development through the arts to young people who would otherwise lack opportunities.

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This piece was written for our double wind quintet in 2004. Dante Grela is an esteemed Argentinean composer who teaches at the National University of Rosario. He visited the USA as a Fulbright scholar in 1996. He received the 2003 Symphonic Music Prize from the Argentinean Society of Composers and Authors. Reflejos Lejanos (Reflections from Afar) is a single-movement work built around folk-melodies and rhythms typical from the northern provinces in Argentina.

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"In August 2003 my aunt in California died. She was one of the last of a remarkable generation who had come through the Depression and the Second World War, moving from a stable but relatively poor environment into the modern world of relative riches and great instability, while retaining their fundamental values. They were the children of a family who had lived at different times in parts of Latin America, adventurous and innovatory, but with a fundamental sense of moral purpose and personal closeness. The piece is my tribute to their courage and sense of values."

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This short piece consists of a 16-bar quotation from the 2nd movement of Schoenberg's first strictly serial work, the wind quintet op.26, followed by three variations on it. The theme is played three times with different instrumentation, the first being Schoenberg's. The first and third variations are serial, and slower than the theme. The second variation is faster, and acerbic in tone. The fourth variation in the same tempo as the theme, and is successively in the Phrygian, Lydian and Aeolian modes.

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Each of the five movements subject familiar musical stereotypes to simple but rather strict processes. The first movement is a march where the phrase lengths are gradually shortened. The second movement presents a simple melody imitated by other instruments. The middle movement, which is like a hinge in the overall structure, is a canon - where the imitation is between two groups. The fourth movement is a reverie with slight but systematic changes to the sustained harmony. The fifth movement is a jig or waltz where the phrase lengths are, unlike the first movement, gradually lengthened.

The pieces were written for Southwark Consorts of Winds.

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March Futile is a piece in which the strong sense of purpose inherent in marching is matched by an equally strong sense of purposelessness. The piece is purposefully dedicated to the members of Contemporary Music-making for Amateurs. It was premiered at the 1997 State of the Nation event at the South Bank Centre, and has been performed since by COMA and by the London Chamber Group.

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