Fantasia on a Lament

! !

Brian Mark

Fantasia on a Lament for Solo Oboe and Delay Pedal

December, 2011

!!!!!!Fantasia on a Lament When I was asked by Spitalfields Music to write my first piece on UK soil, notably a composition for solo oboe, I immediately thought of how this instrument has developed since Elizabethan times. The oboe was referred to as the ‘hautbois’ in the mid 17th century, its predecessor known as the ‘shawm’, and so I recalled musical styles during the Elizabethan era. I was always inspired by Henry Purcell's lament, When I am Laid in Earth (from Dido and Aeneas). I decided to use a delay pedal for this composition, in order to exhibit a hypnotic homage based on this theme, bringing the audience to an earlier time in England's history. As this commission is improvised on this melody, Fantasia on a Lament became the appropriate title due to its hauntingly melancholic landscape.

Fantasia on a Lament was premiered at the Spitalfields Music Festival on 14 December, 2011, and was professionally recorded by AHRC Research Fellow Christopher Redgate at the Royal Academy of Music on 3 March, 2012.

-Brian Mark *Future live performances of Fantasia on a Lament requires a digital delayprocessing pedal having a minimum long delay of 2000ms, as 2600-2700ms would be the ideal for this piece. The single arrow down indicates to press the pedal. The double arrow down indicates to wait for the previous loops to completely clear/fade out, before pressing the pedal again to start a new loop phrase/pattern. However, the double arrow down with the star (on page 2) gives the performer an option of starting the next loop while the preceeding phrase is just at the end of its clear/fade out, much like an overlapping dovetail.

If the later is chosen at these certain sections, you would not press the pedal again on the single arrow (hence parenthesis), but this decision should be drawn out carefully, based on the pedal used in the performance.

Note: a fermata over a rest indicates to let the preceeding loop phrase carry through for 7-10 seconds. This specific instruction does not pertain to the fermatas at the end of a phrase (with the double arrows), since at that point you would just wait for the loops to clear/fade out before pressing the pedal again.

Solo Oboe

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commissioned by the Spitalfields Music Festival

Fantasia on a Lament

with delay pedal

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