Programme Note
As I was writing this piece I gradually became aware that the music was quite
unconsciously being influenced by music from the ‘film noir’ movies that I’d seen in
my youth. Having realised this I began to view the soloist as a protagonist in such a
film, being hunted and pursued through dark streets on a rainy winter night. In the
slow movement, the scene changes to a threatening forest, and in the final movement
returns to an urban setting, until the pursued is finally ‘released’ and enters a kind of
Hollywood heaven.
Geoffrey Burgon