TOM COULT | Pleasure Garden for violin & orchestra – 20202(II=a.fl,picc).2(II=c.a.).2(II=b.cl).1.cbsn – 2.2.1.b.tmb.0 – perc(2): I: mar/tub bells/tri – II: vib – harp – pno – solo vln

Pleasure Garden

I – Dyeing the lake blue for Queen Victoria

II – Francesco Landini serenades the birds

III – The art of setting stones

The three movements of Pleasure Garden take inspiration from various images and stories about constructed ‘natural spaces’ in and around cities. These images and stories sparked off initial musical ideas, but composition then proceeded along its own musical logic rather than each movement necessarily ‘telling a story’.

Worsley New Hall, the Gothic mansion whose grounds are now home to the new RHS Bridgewater in Salford, was visited by Queen Victoria in 1851. She and her party arrived by boat on the Bridgewater Canal, which had been dyed blue to mark her visit. As it contained iron ore from nearby mines, the water was already stained orange, so the resultant colour was more of a green. I can picture the dye slowly soaking in, beginning to mingle with the water.

Francesco Landini was a 14th century Italian musician, whose organetto playing was extremely beautiful. He was asked, when with friends at Florence’s Paradiso gardens, to settle a bet. When he played his organetto, would the garden’s many birds sing more, or less? He played his beautiful song – at first the birds became silent, but as he played on, they fluttered down and sung more and more, becoming cacophonous. Eventually they subsided and one bird flew down and perched on his head.

Japanese rock gardens are constructed around artful arrangements of rocks, and raked gravel or sand to evoke water. There are rules, sometimes strict, for the placement of rocks – often these are to encourage an overall sense of harmony, without ever arranging things symmetrically. These rules use the principles of ishi wo tateru koto (‘the art of setting stones’).

Instrumentation:

solo violin & orchestra: 2(II=a.fl,picc).2(II=c.a.).2(II=b.cl).1.cbsn – 2.2.1.btmb.0 – perc(2): I: mar/tub bells/tri – II: vib – harp – pno – solo vln – strings (recommended 8.6.6.6.4)

Duration:

25 mins

Commission:

Commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and Salford University

Score:

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