O, the Snow it Melts the Soonest


Instrumentation:
sop/alto, fl, A cl, mar, hp, vln, vla, vc

Approximate duration:
3 minutes

Programme notes (© David Curington, 2011):

This folk song arrangement draws the accompaniment directly from the motivic content of the melody itself and utilises rules for embellishment drawn from folk singing tradition, in the hope that the result sounds as "organic" as possible with the vocal line representing just one of several lines of counterpoint. The false relations found in the melody are exploited in the accompaniment throughout and the orchestration is deliberately simple in sympathy with the pure vocal style of most folk singers.

This piece was completed in December 2010 for the Manchester Camerata Compsers' Project.

Sample music:

Click here for a few pages of the score as a pdf file, or listen to an excerpt below.

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