The Way of Things

This work turned into a commentary on human nature. Part of the brief was to write a piece of music somehow linked to Reading, Berkshire, and I quickly researched the history of the town. Being a lover of the narrative form, I cherry-picked episodes from Reading’s timeline that I could translate compositionally and orchestrally, and gave them corresponding titles. These were: the initial settlement of Reading; the first battle of Reading; the construction of the Abbey and growth of the town; the second battle of Reading; the ironworks and (later) railway; modern life.It dawned on me that this sequence of events – peaceful coexistence to growing tensions to battles and wars to changes to temporary reconciliation seems – at least to me – to be the endless cycle of the way things are, and can be translated onto almost any given situation, big or small, internal or external. So, the piece became a commentary on The Way Of Things, in terms of how we interact with ourselves and our environments.The titles of the movements are self-explanatory and the music is evocative of the atmospheres the titles suggest. The most crucial point of the work is some way through movement III, where for one moment the entire orchestra comes together and is totally united by the same melody. This is short lived, however, as different characters, schemes, agendas and ideas gradually bubble up to the surface, causing disagreement and tension.Running all the way through the work is an unheard cyclic melody, derived from the pitches of ‘READING, BERKSHIRE.’ Being circular, the cycle can literally go on forever… The piece cannot, however, and at the end, as new tensions emerge, and after a moment of rare silence, the final passage of music can either be heard as argumentative or cooperative – negative or positive – another battle or reconciliation… You decide!Performance History• 21/01/2017 The Way of Things (2016) for orchestra; Aldworth Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Andrew Taylor, The Concert Hall, Reading Town Hall, Reading (APO commission