Suite ecossaise

The dances in this suite (completed 2022) are a way of connecting with my Scottish heritage. Rather than using actual folk melodies, they imaginatively recreate my childhood experiences of Burns suppers and Hogmanay celebrations (typically soundtracked by Jimmy Shand’s Scottish dance records, with their characteristic framing tonic chords). Rhythmic and other characteristics of Scottish traditional music (Scotch snaps, bagpipe references, modality, jigs) are deployed but slightly displaced by the occasional irruption of certain elements characteristic of early modernism (‘wrong’ notes, non-functional harmonic sonorities, non-periodic phrasing). I also set myself specific compositional challenges: to create melody from scale fragments (Strathspey, Jig) and from arpeggios (Reel, Valse). The suite has also been informed by my discovery of the music of neglected Scottish composer Erik Chisholm (1904-1965), and his aim to present elements of traditional Scottish music within the context of international pan-European modernism. His desire to establish the March-Strathspey-Reel sequence as a pattern for modern Scottish composers to explore is reflected in the central medley: the ‘alla marcia’ Strathspey (originally actually titled March, as noted; and with a ‘Highland Fling’ coda episode), followed by the newly-composed Strathspey II, and succeeded by the Reel