SKU: HL.14028929

Written for Moray Welsh whilst still an undergraduate at York University. This piece was completed in mid-September. Inspired by Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf. A solo 'cello seemed an appropriate medium for music which might explore the character of Harry Haller, with his desire for bourgeois comfort and his strong misanthropic and suicidal tendencies. The opening theme attempts to express this - melancholy, nostalgic, a bit Biedermeyer (cf. Brahms Intermezzi). The basic theme of the book, at its simplest, is that every human personality consists of hundred of different personalities - within every man there lurks a wolf. Accordingly the tendency of my piece is for all its musical material to become distorted, either by thematic transformation or by changes of timbre. There are three movements played without a break. The first is a character portrait of the Steppenwolf. The second is concerned in the most general sort of way with the dance elements in the novel - Harry's being taught to dance and appreciate low 'popular' music - a tango is recapitulated in a waltz and 'Yearning', a popular song of the time (1927) is hinted at. The third movement concerns the Masked Ball and the Magic Theatre. Mozart is one of Hesse's great loves and he is repeatedly mentioned in the book. Inevitably some Mozart quotes have been worked in, the most significant being a reference to The Magic Flute 'fire and water' flute theme in the middle of the second movement. Long before I finished the piece, I was disenchanted with the work of Hesse. Much of Steppenwolf I now find rather embarrassing and the claims currently made for Hesse's greatness seem to me exaggerated. Since my piece is in no important sense programmatically specific, this change of heart doesn't really matter. ~ David Blake.

SKU: HL.14010200

UPC: 884088837112.

“Elutropia is a Gemme, in colour greene, or grassie, in part coloured and bespotted with Purple speckes & bloud coloures vaines. This is a marvellous Jugler, for it will cause things object to be presented to our eies as it listeth. It being put into a Basan of water chaungeth to a mans eyesight the Sunne his beames, and giveth them a contrarie colour. Being also moved and beaten in the ayre maketh to appeare a bloudie Sunne, and darkneth the ayre in the maner of an Eclipse: and therfore it is called Eloutropia as you would say, the Sunne his enimie. There is of this name also a certain Hearbe which Enchaunters & Witches have oftentimes used and doe use, as also that above said, whereby they have mocked and deluded many, which by meanes and working and enchauntment, have so dazzled the beholders eies, that they have gone by them invisibly.” John Maplet (died 1592) A greene forest, or A natural historie 1567 This text from the clergyman, astrologer and natural historian John Maplet's fascinating work in which he describes the properties of various gemstones is the inspiration for this piece. Without being programmatic, the music is constantly developed to try and mimic the way the shafts of light mutate through the gem, and the illusions and magic they create.