Page 162 - FINAL_The Sixteen Coverage Book 40th Anniversary Year
P. 162
“I have in mind a kind of ideal listener in composing; and that ideal
listener is as curious as I am about making fresh encounters in music that
they haven’t made before. Edinburgh has audiences especially interested
in grappling with new, unexpected encounters in the arts.
“My first aspiration is getting my music to work: to have its own
consistency, and a message and a meaning; and then to be able to
communicate it, through fellow-musicians, to the listener. It’s a three-way
communication that is mystical and magical, and can be really wonderful.
“I think music today is as important as ever. It’s a language that speaks
beyond words and images, and that’s why it’s so mysterious, and so
strangely beautiful.”
Quickening (Usher Hall, 10 August); The Culham Motets and All the Hills
and Vales Along (Greyfriars Kirk, 16 August); A Scotch
Bestiary and Woman of the Apocalypse (Usher Hall, 17 August);
Symphony No. 5 Le grand inconnu and Symphony No. 2 (17 August and
Radio 3 tba); Fourteen Little Pictures (Queen’s Hall, 17 August).
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