This piece lasts about 12 minutes and it plays continuously although it is made up of 16 small movements. Throughout the four string players form a group: sometimes the clarinet is caught up with them but more often it is like a person pursuing an independent train of thought: sometimes talking to itself sometimes conversational sometimes singingThe starting point for my Quintet was Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities: like the book my piece is composed from many small contrasting ideas that are constantly transforming some coming to the fore as others recede. This quintet is dedicated to Hugh Sargent who commissioned it.

Lament was composed in 1988.The scoring was chosen for its dark colour: oboe doubling cor anglais clarinet doubling bass clarinet viola and cello. The melodic lines and harmony are often inflected with quarter-tones.

Corpus Cum Figuris is a uniform composition in three major parts. The first part is a slow marche funébre a kind of prologue with dark and sombre sounds and a massive wall of chords which leads us to the other part of the works where the static and solemn atmosphere is suddenly stopped and replaced by a rhythmic/melodic ritual which accelerates the music. In the third part the block structure is softened gradually different figurations and stylistic elements arise to live their own lives: distant waltzes and pictures from the Middle Ages appear in this gigantic sonorous body. After a wild percussion orgy a short flash-back and a scream from the edge end Corpus cumFiguris. The piece has no literal content at all even though the title leads the thought to Adrian Leverkühn?s Apocalipsis cum Figuris from Thomas Mann?s Doctor Faustus. More likely my piece will arouse associations as with all my music. It has to be heard in it?s own conditions in this case as a big body of music or perhaps as a great screen where the details of course are part of the whole body but at the same time are foreign and odd. It is as if one climbs a mountain and from the top of that mountain discovers a world which is completely different from expected. Corpus cum Figuris for 20 musicians was composed in 1984 commissioned by Ensemble InterContemporain and the Danish Radio. Ensemble InterContemporain world premiered the work in April 1985 conducted by Peter Eötvös. The piece was also played at the ISCM-festival in Amsterdam by Netherland Radio Chamber Orchestra conducted by Ernest Bour.

Commissioned by the St Magnus Festival with funds from the Scottish Arts Council. First performed by The Fires of London in June 1978 in St Magnus Cathedral Kirkwall.The work takes as its starting-point a sequence of dreams related by Franz Kafka in his diaries of 1910. Eduardova was a Russian ballerina whom Kafka had seen dancing in Prague in the early part of this century. The music of The Dancer Eduardova is based on dancing particularly the csardas which in his dream Kafka had asked the dancer to perform just one time more. Kafka's dream-sequences contain the uncomfortable contrasts of the grace of the dancer and the loathsome gestures of unconscious intriguers;there are abrupt changes of mood to sorrow and despair. Flowers presented by all the Princes of Europe appear in the dreams as do trains and trams on which Eduardova travels with two vigorous violinists.

There are three mysteries about this piece by Purcell originally scored for Viols. When it was written for what purpose it was written and why the eccentric title ‘Chacony’ rather than the French ‘chaconne’ are questions whoseanswers are all shrouded in the mists of time. The suggested dates of early 1680’s and as a piece of light music for some sort of theatrical performance almost answer two of the three questions. The Chacony is scored here forString quartet but could be played by a larger ensemble.

This authentic arrangement of ten movements from the Water Music suites dates from Handel’s lifetime but is published here for the first time edited by the distinguished Handel scholar Donald Burrows. Its simple light scoring makes it excellently suited to use by schools and small instrumental groups. It can be performed in many different combinations from the original two violins bassoon and continuo to string quartet or wind-based group.

The first in a trilogy of works for chamber orchestra the Sinfonia Concertante uses its forces very much in concerto fashion - and not least its timpanist who signals the work to start and has a real melodic role at the start ofthe finale.The first performance took place in August 1983 as part of a BBC promenade concert at the Royal Albert Hall London. It was given by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields conducted by Neville Marriner.Score(miniature). Duration c. 31mins.

Completed in 1992 Corrente was commissioned by the Swedish Literature Society Of Finland. As the title suggests the piece bids a nod to the Baroque dance form the Courante based upon an ever-shifting series ofrepeating ostinati - the piece even contains a fleeting glimpse of Purcell's Funeral Music For Queen Mary.However a simple exercise in Baroque dance it is not. The title also translates as Flowing and theostinati create a texture of ripples that contrast strongly with the stronger rhythms of the dance.

Work for Chamber Ensemble choreographed by Siobhan Davies and commissioned by the Rambert Dance Company.