Programme Notes
Evening Voluntary (Solo Organ)
When sifting through ideas for Evening Voluntary, I felt I wanted the piece to link with a religious aspect in some way, but also to have parallels with the wider world. Much of my music written in a religious context questions or challenges certain views, and this was one of the starting points for the piece.Another extra musical starting point was the set of poems entitled Evening Voluntaries by William Wordsworth. The piece isn’t directly inspired by any one of the poems; instead it simply takes some of the general ideas to create a new ‘poem’ for organ.
The music is constructed around a searching passacaglia line, beginning in the pedals, which grows and develops on each repetition. Encircling the passacaglia are a series of related but contrasting ideas, symbolising mist, cloud, and confusion. Eventually, the passacaglia line climbs into the manuals of the organ and breaks through the mist and cloud, dominating the piece completely. The coda provides a temporary repose; this was influenced by the clarity of a clear moonlit sky seen from the top of a mountain.
Although written in a religious context, the piece can be listened to on many levels. The music can be seen as a search for inward clarity, or a spiritual journey. I aimed to evoke a feeling of hopefulness and calm optimism in the listener by the end of the piece.