Orchestra
SKU:
BT.YKM570369270
Composed by Robert
Saxton. Score Only.
Composed 2021. 70 pages.
University of York Music
Press #YKM570369270.
Published by University
of York Music Press
(BT.YKM570369270).
A Hymn to the
Thames was commissioned
by James Turnbull and the
Music Director of the St
Paul’s Sinfonia, Andrew
Morley. It was begun in
2019 and completed early
in 2020. There are four
movements played without
a break, which follow the
Thames from its Cotswold
source to the North Sea.
As the first performance
took place in St
ALfege’s Church,
Greenwich, this seemed
appropriate. The solo
oboe represents both a
wanderer along the river
path and the spirit of
the river. The pitch
centres of the movements
spell out the musical
letters of the river
(tHAmES—B natural, A, E
and E flat) so that the
river’s name is
projected across the
whole work. In addition,
the musical letters found
in James Turnbull, Andrew
Morley and my wife,
Teresa Cahill ( who was
born in Maidenhead and
brought up by the river
in Rotherhithe) are
entwined in various
guises. The first
movement grows from the
depths, the soloist
entering with
fanfare-like gestures,
followed by lyrical music
and breaks into a dance
as the river gathers
momentum. The third
movement is slow and
sustained and
geographically the Thames
flows through Oxford. The
music is based on the
well-known In Nomine
‘head motif’ from the
Gloria tibi Trinitas Mass
by the early Tudor
composer, John Taverner,
who was the first
Director of Music at
Christ Church, Oxford.
The orchestra provides a
screen or veil above
which the solo oboe
dreams and ruminates.
This leads directly into
the fourth and final
movement which begins in
the depths once more,
interrupting the oboe’s
held note from the end of
the third movement. The
waters’ increasing
intensity and power are
represented throughout by
a moto perpetuo of quick,
steady semiquavers. Near
the close, the woodwind
play O Nata Lux by Thomas
Tallis, the great Tudor
composer who, with his
wife Joan, is buried in
St Alfege’s. Beneath
this, the lower strings
continue the fast
semiquaver movement of
the river and, above, the
violins are heard as a
halo of harmonics. At the
close, the oboe rises,
opening out to the
future, and celebrating
its voyage, while the
orchestra fades as the
river meets the sea. A
Hymn to the Thames lasts
approximately 17
minutes.
