DRIFTING, DANCING
For Orchestra
ABOUT
Rudy Percival Composer
Jack Sheen Conductor
GSMD Musicians Performers
Premiered May 2021, Silk Street Music Hall, London
'Drifting, Dancing' intends to be (as the title would suggest) a dance, taking inspiration from Baroque forms and historically informed string playing techniques, as well as the concept of the Double Violin Concerto.
The piece opens with an unfurling of a cluster of pitches in the strings (always descending, as if sighing) and progresses by gradually expanding, contracting and developing a sequence of these clusters. Though at first the musical textures are relatively tranquil, interjections of more frenetic material break through into new harmonic areas, ultimately bringing the music to its climax. The final section of the piece is a coda, which functions to distil and invert the musical materials heard throughout the work.