Miniature Score.This work was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It was first performed on 13th May 1998 London. This piece is based on a genuine old tune 'Maxwell's Strathspey' which the composer found inan 1824 collection of Scottish melodies and which unfolds at the start of the piece on solo cello. Variations and a bold up-tempo to the quick dance we know as a reel ultimately yield to the magic that has been promised right atthe start: the northern lights take over at the end of the piece. Its inspiration comes from a walk to a community event in Hoy Hall during which Davies saw the lights in the sky pulsing in and out of time with the sounds comingfrom the hall. Duration 12 minutes. Conductor's score and orchestral parts are available on hire.

In the early years of our century when vital new forces were revolutionising the arts Russian-born Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) was one of the visionary pioneers who sought a new musical language. At least a full decade before the advances of Stravinsky and Schoenberg Scriabin had begun the process of a complete break with all musical conventions. By 1905 he was immersed in a search for a way to express in sound the mystical and theosophical ideas obsessed him. Scriabin’s last two orchestral works were the products of a virtual delirium of composing. Simultaneously refining his poem called Poem of Ecstasy andcompleting the symphony that grew out of it (and shared its name) Scriabin never forgot the rapture of composing this work about creation and self-fulfilment: “I gasp for breath but oh what bliss! The very meter kindles the meaning…” Prometheus: Poem of Fire – Scriabin’s last and most revolutionary symphony – portrays Man’s epic journey from the mists of beginning time to a wonderous self-realisation given the gift of fire and light to make creative vision possible. Massively scored Prometheus incorporates a “colour Organ” to bathe the performance space in a vast interplay of coloured lights. For the music professional and every student of composition orchestration and conducting both scores are strikingly original and instructive. Equally fascinating are Scriabin’s approach to composition the extraordinary sonorities of his orchestra and his fanciful often supercharged performance instructions that replace conventional words for tempo mood and expression.

Nico Muhly's It Remains To Be Seen was written in 2006 for for full Orchestra and has a duration of approximately 11 minutes. Composers Note: It Remains to be Seen was written for the Boston University Tanglewood Institute’s 40th Anniversary Gala in July 2006. The piece begins with a chord identical to the one at the end of Stravinsky’s Firebird suite and proceeds into a series of charged nocturnal episodes. I wanted to treat the feeling of having just heard music and being expected to make one’s own – referencing the experience of leaving a BSO concert at the shed walking back to BUTI on a curvy back road arguing about music in pairs and threes and at the sign of bright headlights from behind reorganizing in single file as a car filled with happy concert-goers speeds by. The piece is a nine-minute navigation of an excited occasionally illuminated dark road filled with arguing cars fragments of remembered music and a constant propulsive pulse. Nico Muhly

Symphonic Poem On The Life Of A Star - Partitura. Par COLLA ALBERTO. Symphonic Poem On The Life Of A Star - Partitura / Musique contemporaine / Répertoire / Orchestre