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 in 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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