Pizzicato pianissimo its sound gestured into resonance a slight plosive of winds sustained Arco – a lament in falling thirds whispering towards an upward leap and a hold crescendo decrescendo Imagine his imagining in nature’s realm (that patient catalyst for the solitary maker’s mind) now guarding here its assembly in a sounding out Adagio – in a three-fold telling A measured preliminary to the music’s soon-to-dance theme before rising scales and emphatic chords – Allegro Vivace
V
Words on the rise bricks on the going then in the hall on the wall A poem you simply have to read so crouch close to the Suffolk brick don’t mind those descending shoes The verse is laced with words of sound breaker march cry rumble clap cueing memory into remembrance And why why here where formal musicking lives and rules are we noised down steps by a boiling kettle?
VI
As the water holds its breath so a dense cloudscape forms and floats Inverted mirrored wholly still it replaces the water with horizonless sky and extended reflections of grass But as water exhales clouds coalesce a right perspective restores
2013 marks the centenary of the birth of the composer Benjamin Britten. In 2011 I made a pilgrimage to the part of the Suffolk coast where he made his home and established the Aldeburgh Festival.