Moving Hues (Revised Version)

Davies, Maxwell

Abstract

Moving Hues was written in 2011 as a farewell gift for conductor Huw Gareth Williams, and the original orchestration was that of Brahms’s Fourth Symphony. All the material contained within the piece is, in some way, derived from the letters of Huw’s name.

The piece is made from a collage of ever-shifting orchestral colours, which are presented in the first section. After its climax, the music relaxes into a series of short, elegiac statements with simple accompaniments that change colour. These melodies are quite bittersweet; sometimes resonating with their accompanying harmonies, and sometimes causing intense dissonance. Morphed fragments of these melodies then combine and intertwine with splashes of the colours heard at the opening. The original ending of the piece – a lone triangle strike – was meant as something of a humorous question mark the point of total saturation – when the orchestra can give no more. At the first performance, this single strike was a little cameo from me. I’d always associated that moment in the music with waking up after an intense and kaleidoscopic dream, so when I was given the opportunity to expand it to include three percussionists, I added a section at the beginning that nods to a ticking clock chiming at an unspecified hour, and the listener drifting off for a quick REM power nap before coming to as the clock is still chiming… Perhaps there’s a parallel here, as we begin to emerge from the different intensities of the pandemic…


Performance History:
25/09/2021 Moving Hues (revised version) for orchestra, APO: The Professionals, conducted by Andrew Taylor, The Hexagon, Reading

• Other Type: Composition
• Publication Date: Sep 25, 2021
• Deposit Date: Nov 4, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 7, 2022
• Keywords: Beethoven, Leonore No.3 Overture, Brahms’s Fourth Symphony, Music Performance
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10118351
• Related Public URLs: https://whatsonreading.com/venues/hexagon/whats-on/apo-professionals