Six songs without Words – Set Seven

This set, dedicated to a colleague and friend, was completed before the end of February 2019. The set contains the following songs:

Song no.1 in F major – Andante piacevole Listen below

Song no.2 in D minor – Allegro: Tempo ritmico Listen using the SoundCloud link below

Song no.3 in D flat major – Andantino Listen using the link below

Song no. 4 in A major – Allegretto leggiero

Song no. 5 in F sharp minor – Barcarolle. Lento Listen using the SoundCloud link below

Song no. 6 in F major– Allegretto con spirito Caraiboso

Set Seven opens in a dreamy mood with an English pastoral flavour. The starting point for Piece Two was a long-remembered improvisation I frequently heard my brother experiment with as a boy and this is mixed with a piece of jazzy character. The expressive lyrical third piece is followed by Piece Four, which seems to suggest the Baroque Suite, despite its quintuple metre. The heart of this set is undoubtedly Piece Five, a barcarolle loosely based on the Skye Boat Song which speaks both of the dedicatee’s love of Scotland and my own sense of loss. The set ends flamboyantly with a piece suggestive of the Caribbean.

Listen to Song no.1 on Soundcloud here: