Title: In Time Entwined, In Space Enlaced
Year: 2008
Instrumentation: Flute (doubling Bass Flute), Cor Anglais, Clarinet in A, 3 percussion, Violin, Viola, Cello, 36 harmonicas (in the audience)
Program note:
Commissioned by London Sinfonietta for their 40th Birthday concert in December 2008, In Time Entwined, In Space Enlaced is an expansion of an earlier trio for bass flute, cor anglais and viola. Throughout the piece the three on-stage trios find themselves entangled in various contrapuntal and heterophonic webs. The individual identities eventually merge into a collective entity which extends beyond the stage into the audience via the ethereal sound of 36 harmonicas sitting in their midst. I was inspired by the surreal expression of love David Gascoyne’s poem “Antennae”:
The timeless sleepers tangled in the bed
In the midst of the sonorous island, alone
The tongue between the teeth
The river between the sands
Love in my hand like lace
Your hand enlaced with mine.