Length / Year
10' / 1998

Instrumentation
cl/vln/vc/pfte

Performance History
First performance
Aberystwyth Music Fest
30th July 1998
Benjamin Ramitz - piano
Nicholas Jones - cello
David Campbell - clarinet

US premiere
Angel Orensanz Foundation, New York
25th, 26th, 28th October 2001
Musica Experimento Roma
Enrico Cocco - director
Part of 'Different Lights' performance for 'UK in NY Festival'

Subsequent performances
Vale of Glamorgan Festival
17th September 1998
The Fibonacci Sequence

WNO Concert Tour of Wales
5th - 9th January 1999
Elinor Bennett - harp soloist

Charterhouse School
17th January 1999
The Fibonacci Sequence

Chetham's School of Music
20th March 1999
Andrez Grabec - violin
David Campbell - clarinet
Nicholas Jones - cello
Nicholas Oliver - piano

Swansea Festival
19th October 1999
Suzanne Stanzeleit - violin
Adrian Bradbury - cello
David Campbell - clarinet
Julian Jacobson - piano

Contemporary Art Museum, Rome
3rd December 1999
Musica Experimento Roma

Vale of Glamorgan Festival
8th & 9th September 2000
Musica Experimento Roma

Grand Theatre, Swansea
12th September 2000
Musica Experimento Roma

Newport Centre, Wales
7th November 2001
PM Ensemble

Norwegian Church, Cardiff, Wales
9th November 2001
PM Ensemble

University College Cardiff, Wales
11th February 2003
Ensemble Cymru

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Programme Note
Writing a new work for the same combination of instruments as Messiaen's 'Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps' was a demanding challenge. There are a relatively few pieces for this combination of instruments and if it were frequently performed it could well be in the context of a programme including the Messiaen, a work that by the circumstances surrounding its creation and, indeed, by its very nature, is very particular.

" Not the stillness of the violin . . ."

My first idea was to write a long slow movement, and, in fact, I completed three sections for such a piece. But I also had related ideas for a very fast section and another dance-like section. With all this material it was very hard to find a final form for the piece ; it was similar to having all the (small number) of pieces for a simple jigsaw but not knowing how they fitted together. Eventually, however, quite a lot of material was cut from the piece and a first version of the piece emerged - two slow, still, outer movements separated by a short, very fast and jazzy dance. A further reconceptualisation led to more cuts and reorganisation and to the final form of the work - three slow sections linking as one long slow movement. Such was the circular journey to the starting point.

" Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts . . ."

I have not heard the Messiaen for some years but I have tried to recreate, in my own terms, the same rapt stillness of the slow sections of the ' Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps'. A lot of the material is very simple, always 'white note' harmony without modulation and moving round a simple bass sequence of three notes. I have also used a little motto of slow, three note chords to preface the work as I did in 'Light Music' for piano (four hands); and in other senses these superficially very different works have elements in common.

" Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts. Not that only . . ."

- T.S.Eliot.

"Not the Stillness . . ." was commissioned by MusicFest, Aberystwyth with funds made available by the Arts Council of Wales and was first performed on July 30th 1998.

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