To Dance on Sands
Programme Note
To Dance on Sands takes its title from the following passage in Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona:
For Orpheus’ lute was strung with poets’ sinews,
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
Make tigers tame and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.
The music was inspired by the evocative images which Shakespeare invents in homage to the power of music. To Dance on Sands opens with a simple melody, almost a lullaby, for solo cello. The melody is joined by an increasingly complex accompaniment which, after a brief respite, takes on a life of its own and becomes the basis of an extended fast section dominated by pizzicato sounds and a series of playful ostinati. The music becomes more and more vigorous until it reaches a very fast and highly energetic climax. The piece ends with a reminiscence – this time on multiple celli – of the melody with which the piece began.
‘[Cellophony’s] UK premiere of Edward Nesbit’s To Dance on Sands was an unexpectedly intriguing diversion into a thoroughly contemporary milieu: atonal, dissonant, crammed with piercing higher-register stretches and fiery, syncopated pizzicatos, it was a thrilling toe-dip into musical waters that was cerebral, intense and challenging for players and listeners. (Jamie Caddick, www.365bristol.com, 10th January 2015)
‘mais n’oublie pas pour autant ni le romantisme, ni la composition contemporaine, grâce à To Dance on Sands d’Edward Nesbit (né en 1986)…S’avance alors un homme pour lire en anglais l’extrait de Shakespeare qui a donné son titre à To Dance on Sands (2013), un hommage à Orphée, qui ferait les Léviathans quitter leurs abîmes « pour danser sur le sable » : bien sûr, c’est Leonard Slatkin, directeur musical de l’Auditorium, qui tient à s’associer par cette lecture aux musiciens de son orchestre… Le soliste expose une mélopée qui rappelle le folklore celtique ; des pizzicati et de longs coups d’archet le soutiennent respectivement dans cette composition originale pour octuor de violoncelles. On danse de fait sur le sable, par la suite : la rythmicité et les vagues ne laissent aucun doute sur l’imaginaire créé par Edward Nesbit, qui, présent pour cette exécution de son œuvre, s’en montre ravi.’ (Beate Langenbruch, Bachtrack, 6th April 2016)
Year: 2014
Duration: 11′
Instrumentation: 8 Celli
Commission: Commissioned by the Verbier Festival.
Performances
3rd April 2016
Cellists of the Orchestre national de Lyon
Auditorium, Lyon
2nd August 2015
Cellophony
Zehntscheune, Freden Festival, Germany
21st March 2015
Cellophony
Influence Church, Richmond
9th January 2015
Cellophony
St. George’s Bristol
30th July 2014
Andrea Casarrubios, Anastasia Kobekina, Bruno Philippe, Ella van Poucke, Johannes Gray, Nuala McKenna, Sayaka Selina, SuJin Lee, Edward Nesbit (Conductor)
Hotel de la Poste, Verbier
30th July 2014
Gautier Capuçon, Adrian Brendel, Amanda Forsyth, Clemens Hagen, Mischa Maisky, István Várdai, Kyril Zlotnikov, Lionel Cottet, Matthieu Herzog (Conductor)
Broadcast on Medici TV
30th July 2014
Gautier Capuçon, Adrian Brendel, Amanda Forsyth, Clemens Hagen, Mischa Maisky, István Várdai, Kyril Zlotnikov, Lionel Cottet, Matthieu Herzog (Conductor)
Eglise, Verbier