15.
ANDREW DOWNES PUBLISHED
WORKS
INSTRUMENTAL ENSEMBLE String Quartets; 8
Cellos and 5 Timpani
STRING QUARTET No.1 Opus 14 (1977) 17'
(3 movements)
First performed by the Perry student quartet on 15th May 1980 in Blakedown
Church, Worcestershire. First professional performance by the Arioso Quartet at
the Birmingham and Midland Institute in February 1983. Numerous
subsequent performances have included one at the Master's Lodge of Trinity
College, Cambridge, by the Thomas Quartet in February 1999. Included as part of
GCE 'A' level ensemble recitals. Individual movements have been performed in
the Adrian Boult Hall and Crescent Theatre, Birmingham, by the Central England
Ensemble Quartet, as part of the 2004 and 2006 Birmingham Artsfests, and in the
Eglise de la Madeleine, Paris, in February 2007, at the Coventry School of
Music (April 2007) and St Georges Church Edgbaston, Birmingham in May
2007. The work has also been played as a string orchestra piece by such
ensembles as the Hagley String Orchestra directed by Joan Best, the Mozart
Orchestra directed by Gordon Heard and Volante Strings led by Angela
Richey. Volante Strings took the work on their tour of Corfu during
Autumn 2006. The Oldswinford Hospital School String
Orchestra, directed by Anna Downes, performed the second movement entitled Andante
with Jazz in June 2011 at three venues in Berlin: the Spandau
Freilichtbühne an der Zitadelle; the Heilig Kreuz Kirche, Kreuzburg; and the
Kaiser Willhelm Gedächtniskirche.
'Downes has written a joyous piece ... rich in melodic invention and
constructed with a closely-knit musical sensibility. His three-movement piece
is music of substance with ideas which are directly and effectively worked
through without padding or pretension... not for the first time the composer
has drawn on jazz idioms within a classical framework. The Arioso, equally
impressive in its precise treatment of the pungent rhythms, particularly in the
middle movement and the exciting finale, as in its appreciation of the music’s
intrinsic lyricism, brought this performance to a most satisfactory
conclusion.'
THE BIRMINGHAM POST
STRING QUARTET No.2 Opus 42 (1987) 25'
(4 movements)
Commissioned by the Exton Quartet (with funds from West Midlands Arts) for
first performance in the Adrian Boult Hall, Birmingham, Summer 1988. Performed
by the Isis String Quartet at venues throughout Britain, including the Fifth
International String Quartet Week (Worcester, 1990) and the London
International Opera Festival (1990).
'Downes's style seems to combine the least cloying aspects of English
pastoralism with dashes of European eclecticism. He is also an unashamed
romantic, and is not afraid to use words like aggression, tenderness and
dreamlike to convey his intentions.
'Yet there is no sentimentality or self-indulgence. The musical points are made
with terse cogency and economy of means - quite brilliantly so in the finale.
With the Andante Downes shows that traditional beauty of expression still has a
place in late twentieth century music, and need not sound derivative.'
THE BIRMINGHAM POST
STRING QUARTET No.3 Opus 54 (1994) 25' View
Score
(1 continuous movement)
Commissioned by the Almira Quartet and first performed by them at the
Birmingham and Midland Institute in Birmingham on March l6th 1995. The Almira
Quartet have since played the work at numerous venues throughout the UK.
Performed in May 1999 by the Thomas Quartet as part of their recital in the
Chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge.
ANDREW DOWNES: MUSIC FOR 8 CELLOS AND 5 TIMPANI pre-opus i
(1969) 8'
(1 continuous movement)
This work was written when the composer was 18, and first rehearsed by the
cellists and timpanist of the BBC Midland Light Orchestra. The manuscript was un-earthed
and typeset many years later by Cynthia Downes (the composer’s wife), with
the result that the first public performance was given by L’Octuor
de Violoncelles and Percussions de Strasbourg on 10th May
2005 at the 13th Rencontres d’Ensembles de Violoncelles, Beauvais,
France.
FIVE MOVEMENTS FOR PIANO QUARTET - See under Arrangements Page 24
LOST LOVE - piano, flute, cello, soprano voice -
See under Song Cycles Page 3
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