Seely Circles (2021)
Violin, Viola, Clarinet and Cello
Performance begins at 44’ 30”.
The term ‘seely’ means ‘innocent’ and is commonly used in Scottish folklore to describe places where fairies live. In a sense, this reflects my personal experiences as an autistic composer. Often, I find my mind touching lightly on certain things and then wandering into new different places, albeit with some similarities. Seely Circles, with its gentle but often capricious nature, aims to capture that experience in music.
Musically, this piece is a slow sequence of free variations on a gently lilting repeated rhythm in 5/4 time, led by the clarinet with echoes in the strings at certain times. Sometimes the strings move off on their own terms, occasionally leaving the clarinet to play alone, but while it can get active at times, the soundscape overall is fairly quiet and light.
A few years back, I wrote a piece for the same forces: The Skene Obsession, which takes another much more contrasting aspect familiar to me by spinning the same reel melody to the point of exhaustion, much like my autism sometimes conditions me to obsess on certain things. Seely Circles provides a contrasting companion piece by touching on the rough opposition of this aspect, by wandering lightly through many different things, as opposed to focusing heavily on one thing.
PERFORMANCES:
Première: 13 June 2021 - Queen’s Cross Church, Aberdeen - Red Note Ensemble