Perusal scores available on request

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Jabberwocky

1983 (appx 7’)

4.3.3.3 – 3.4.3.1 hp, celeste, 3 perc. Strings
This early work is inspired by Lewis Carroll’s famous Jabberwocky from ‘Through the Looking Glass’. It is suitable for youth orchestras and presents appropriate challenges to students of c. Grade 7 and 8 standards.

 

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Borodubur – Temple of the Secret Aspect

Based on the architectural design and narrative carvings of the immense Javanese monument
1987 (appx. 32’)
5.4.4.4 – 5.6.3.1 – 2hp, celeste, 5 perc, – 16.16.14.12.10

This large-scale work is scored for an orchestra of significant size with many percussion instruments. It was first performed by the RCM Symphony Orchestra conducted by Elgar Howarth as part of the Fast Forward Festival.

 

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A Pilgrim of Angkor

1997 rev 2020 (appx. 31’)
4.3.3.3.sop.sax – 3.4 (+bass tpt).euph.2.- 1 hp, pno, 9 perc. – 16.14.12.10.8

Programme Note:

The great temple complex of Angkor was reputedly discovered by the French explorer Henri Mouhot in 1860. The temples hadn’t been fully abandoned, but they were in serious neglect. Angkor Wat was still home to a group of monks while other temples had been taken over by the encroaching forest. Why the Khmers gradually left Angkor, once the greatest capital on earth, remains a matter of conjecture. What is certain is the extraordinary impact it makes today, created by a mix of dimension, intricate detail, symbolic plans, and an environment that mixes man and nature.

No piece of music can recreate a complex work of architecture, because one is three dimensional and another isn’t! But the simplicity of fundamental design, combined with the most detailed and abundant imagery is how music is created. As a result, this work uses ways to evoke, represent, symbolise and guide the listener into an other-worldly place where ritual and exoticism combine.

The title is a direct translation of the name of Pierre Loti’s famous book about the city, Un Pèlerin d’Angkor (originally published in 1912). But it is right, because I have been a pilgrim of Angkor for oh so many years, finally visiting the city in 2017, twenty years after this work was created. © Paul Max Edlin 2020

 

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Five Illusions for Orchestra

2015 (appx 17″)

1.     Maze

2.     Lake

3.     Towers

4.     Nocturne

5.     Puzzle

4. 3. 3. 3 – 4.3.3.1 – hp, celeste, 3 perc., – standard strings

Programme Note:

The birth of this score has taken about thirty years.  The first four pieces in this set are a reworking of pieces for piano duo that I completed in the early 1980s.  However, I always wanted to create orchestral version of these pieces, feeling their range of colours ideally suited to such large forces.   The reworking became, in part, compositional too, and a final movement, creating an arch shape design felt right.  I knew that this work should begin high and relentlessly tumble to the depths.  The creation of this piece happened so easily and became a total pleasure.  The titles of the five movements are suggestions only, aimed at focusing thoughts, just as Debussy’s titles for his piano preludes do.  However, the overall title ‘Illusions’ was easy to reach.  These are illusions in every sense – surreal and dreamlike images that I enjoy inhabiting.  The work is dedicated to my partner, Giuliana Gomiero, who inspired me to create these orchestral pieces.     © Paul Max Edlin 2015

 

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Simple Gifts

2017 (appx. 22 mins)

commissioned by and for the London Chamber Orchestra and all the young Music Junction performers

1 – Circles and Symmetries
2 – Invention 1 – The Creation of Artificial Light
3 – Invention 2 – Velocity and Speed – the Age of the Train
4 – Invention 3 – NASA and the Golden Record
5 – Simple Gifts

MUSICIANS:
MUSIC JUNCTION ENSEMBLE
The music is designed to include the following instruments at advanced, intermediate and beginner levels.
WOODWIND:
Flutes, Oboe/s, Clarinets, Saxophone (alto)
Parts can be added/adapted for other instruments including Bassoon/s
BRASS:
Piccolo Trumpet (professional player)
Trumpets in Bb
Parts can be added/adapted for other instruments including horns, trombones and tuba, etc
KEYBOARD – 1 or 2 players (an electric keyboard can be used)
PERCUSSION – several players, including: Vibraphone, Suspended Cymbals (with bows), Side Drums (at least 2), Tam-tam, optional Gong, Bass Drum, various assorted miscellaneous instruments such as wine glasses/plastic bottles.
STRINGS
Parts currently for Violins and Cello
VOICES
All young participants to sing
AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION – singing in the final setting of ‘Simple Gifts’

CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Flute (doubling piccolo and bass flutes)
Oboe
Clarinet in Bb
Bassoon
Piano
Strings (7,5,4,4,2)

The brief for this composition was to create a work for the London Chamber Orchestra to play with well over 100 young people. It also needed to use the Shaker melody ‘Simple Gifts’.

‘Simple Gifts’ was composed in 1848 by Elder Joseph Brackett in Maine. It has one verse:
‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free
‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come ’round right.

Brackett’s song is almost exactly contemporaneous with the birth of Thomas Edison (born 1947), and this coincidence made me consider the ‘simple gifts’ that we take for granted – artificial light, recordings, transport, even journeying into space. What in 1847 would have been unimaginable, pure fantasy, is now part of everyday life. This work takes head on aspects of musical composition and music education via the sciences that have changed the way we live.
‘Circles and Symmetries’ explores the Shaker melody via the circle of fifths (i.e. the various keys possible in a particular order). Simultaneously it considers pleasing issues of symmetry and the golden section. The text is created by the young participants.
The Creation of Artificial Light’ explores the ‘natural harmonic series’ and the use of symbolism including ciphers (based on the name of Thomas Edison). The whispers are based on the materials which were used by Edison in his early experiments and his created light bulbs.
‘Velocity and Speed’ explores the idea of the ‘accelerando’, some at varying speeds, and gives opportunity to enjoy the imitation of the sounds of trains.
NASA has recorded sounds of/in space (the results of electromagnetic vibrations that pulsate in similar wavelengths). (Many of these recordings are publically available via You Tube and Soundcloud, and these are used as inspiration for the extemporised passages in the 4th section). Furthermore, NASA sent a ‘golden record’ deep into space via Voyager Interstellar Mission. The Voyager message is carried on a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk (the phonograph was another of Edison’s inventions) containing sounds and images that portray the diversity of Earth’s life and culture. There are many musical examples, including works by Bach, Beethoven and Stravinsky, but also Javanese Gamelan, Panpipes from the Solomon Islands, Mexican music and Japanese flute music – all depicted in a somewhat surreal way in this movement. Finally, we return to the original Shaker melody, to simply celebrate the song’s meaning as well as the world we have created. This piece is proudly educational.  © Paul Max Edlin 2016 

 

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Impossible Missions

2021 (appx. 13″)

1. Captain Cliché
2. Gabriel's Pipe & Slippers
3. Dracula has indigestion at midnight (segue to...)
4. Frankenstein takes a shower
5. Harper's Bazaar
6. Pirated! 

2.2.2.2 – 4.3.3.1 – hp, celeste, 3 perc., piano, celeste, harp, guitar – standard strings

Programme Note:

Six cinematic pieces for full orchestra, written incredibly speedily (at odd times over four days) – for instance, the first piece took literally three hours to compose and orchestrate between 9pm and midnight) as a bet with my wife to prove to her that I could write a ‘tune’ and be commercial!  She thought it would be a ‘mission impossible’, so I needed to prove her wrong on all counts – and win that bet!  The music charts of paths of much typical Hollywood style film music, from blockbuster action hero openings to horror and suave secret agents. Oh, and pirates too! © Paul Max Edlin 2021

 

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Piano Concerto No. 2 – Il grande illusionista

2024 (appx. 31″)

I - ...si svogle un drama (a drama unfolds)
II - ...un'elegia assurda (an absurd elegy)
III - ...una cadenza surreale (a surreal cadenza)
IV - ...un gran finale: introduzione - una passacaglia imperiosa (a grand finale: introduction – an imperious passacaglia) 

Piano solo, 3. 3. 3. 3 – 4.3.3.1 – hp, celeste, 3 perc., – standard strings

Programme Note:

This piano concerto derived from a commission for piano and toy piano. I intended to write that piece first and then use elements for a larger scale work. I drafted some sketches, but then fantasy took hold, and I imagined a sort of conjuror of surreal images and situations, a character of dreams that could create the extraordinary. I suppose this all harks back to the surreal paintings my mother painted, and the sort of visual imagery I have always loved – a mix of surrealism and illustrated books ranging from Salvador Dali and Edmund Dulac to current artists such as Roberto Innocenti and Michael Cheval. 

 

There is no story, and there is no intention to create specific images. Rather the music alludes to fantasy and the movement titles are purposely ambiguous. However, it would be hard to deny that the political and social issues facing the world at the time of composition did not impact. They did. And I saw this illusionist as both impressive and malevolent. But, and as with all illusionists, their fantasies are only that, and all ends abruptly. 

 

This concerto is steeped in tradition too. The first movement is in a sort of sonata form; the second 'elegy' is a theme and variations; the cadenza uses material from what has come and what will come, and the final movement is a passacaglia. Certain piano concertos helped inspire specific moments: Beethoven's Emperor, Tchaikovsky’s 1 , Ravel's G major, Prokofiev's 2 and Bartok's 3 . The work was composed at relatively feverish speed in December 2023 and January 2024.  © Paul Max Edlin 2024