DWALM

2018

(Saxophone quartet) 8'

Commissioning note

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With the greatest of thanks to Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting for commissioning the piece for the Blackbird Creative Lab, and ⁓Nois saxophone quartet, for nuturing and premiering it.

 

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Dedication

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Dwalm is dedicated to my sister, Chloe, who has always found light in darkness.

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Programme note

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There is a strangeness to the duality of the word dwalm. It is an old Scottish word with two meanings: a stupor or daydream (as in the phrase in a dwalm), and to faint or fall ill. It comes from the Old English word dwolma, which means confusion.

 

What is strange is that a daydream is such a light and lovely drifting of the mind, whereas fainting or falling ill is a sudden wrenching. Perhaps though, they are different surfacings of the same darkness.

 

This piece for ~Nois is half lullaby, half keen; both songs to set someone to rest, whether by drifting off or being bid a final, fearsome farewell.