HELLAWELL
Copicornua for Horn in F
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PIERS HELLAWELL ISSUU Version For perusal only
Copicornua
for Horn in F
EDITION PETERS
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PROGRAMME NOTE
Copicornua for French Horn was occasioned by the 200 Scheme of the Royal Academy of Music, one of a series of short solo pieces for a gamut of instruments.
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To enshrine the Royal Academy’s 200th landmark within the music fabric, this piece makes use of the Roman numeral form of 200 – ‘CC’ – via a recurrent motif of two high Cs: one is standard, the other raised by a quarter-tone. This motif, a ‘public monument’ in the landscape, stands between an upward-thrusting line, that climbs through the horn’s registers, and a contrastingly deflationary descending motif. A third idea then strides upwards from the low register; however, the ‘CC’ motif gradually asserts its dominance over the landscape. Shades of music in my head while approaching this work appear as references to Wagner and Strauss (a performance of whose Metamorphosen by RAM students, online, moved me at the time of composition). The title, a play on the mythological ‘horn of plenty’ (cornucopia), doubles as a reference to the incredible riches that RAM continues to offer our musical life – while a third aspect of ‘Copicornua’ is those paired ‘C’s, representing the RAM’s Anniversary: 200.
Copicornua is dedicated to its first player, George Strivens.
Piers Hellawell 2020
First performed by George Strivens at the David Josefowitz Hall, Royal Academy of Music, on 21st January 2021
Duration: c. 3ʹ
PERFORMANCE NOTES
End-of-group notes with no stem (with or without fermata) are held freely at the player’s discretion.
Groups using a sloping beam form part of gradual accelerandi; separate tuplets do not individually accelerate but fall within a single, cumulative growth of pace and volume.
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thisrisingfiguretosoundasfree-flowingaspossible,rubato; accel.andcresc.steadily,throughout
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(see'A':steady,inexorableaccel.andcresc.)
Largo (e=90)
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campaniinaria)
Longdim.,slowlyturningaway fromaudienceto'remove'sound furtherduringdiminuendo
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Piers Hellawell
Piers Hellawell (b. 1956) has worked with leading artists such as the LSO, Schubert Ensemble, Dame Evelyn Glennie and the Hilliard Ensemble, who toured his Hilliard Songbook pieces worldwide. Orchestral works include Cors de chasse (for Håkan Hardenberger, Jonas Bylund and the Philharmonia Orchestra) and the BBC commission Dogs and Wolves (2006), while Syzygy was premiered in 2013 by the Stockholm Chamber Brass/Swedish Chamber Orchestra. 2016 saw Hellawell’s Wild Flow commissioned for the BBC Proms, and a UK tour of Up by the Roots – a collaboration with poet Sinéad Morrissey – as well as a composer feature at Detroit’s Great Lakes Festival. Hellawell has been Professor of Composition at Queen’s University of Belfast since 2002, and has spoken widely on issues of music and cultural ownership as Gresham Professor of Music in London, 2000–2003.
Piers Hellawell (*1956) hat mit vielen namhaften Künstlern und Ensembles zusammengearbeitet, u.a. mit dem London Symphony Orchestra, dem Schubert Ensemble, Evelyn Glennie und dem Hilliard Ensemble, das seinem Hilliard Songbook zu internationaler Bekanntheit verhalf. Zu Hellawells Orchesterwerken zählen Cors de chasse (für Håkan Hardenberger, Jonas Bylund und das Philharmonia Orchestra), das BBC-Auftragswerk Dogs and Wolves (2006) sowie Syzygy, das 2013 von Stockholm Chamber Brass und dem Swedish Chamber Orchestra uraufgeführt wurde. 2016 entstanden Wild Flow für die BBC Proms sowie Up by the Roots – ein Gemeinschaftsprojekt mit der Dichterin Sinéad Morrissey, das bei Konzerten in ganz Großbritannien und Nordirland zur Aufführung kam. Im gleichen Jahr bildete sein Schaffen einen Schwerpunkt des Great Lakes Festival in Detroit. Hellawell ist seit 2002 Professor an der Queen’s University in Belfast. Von 2000 bis 2003 hatte er die Londoner Gresham-Professur für Musik inne und setzte sich bei seinen Vorträgen mit Fragen des kulturellen Eigentums in der Musik auseinander.