Dances on a Ground

Favoured by English composers from Purcell to Vaughan Williams and Britten, the ground-bass form receives a contemporary makeover in Morgan Hayes’s Dances on a Ground. Artfully four-square, a cello ostinato stays stubbornly true to its original thoughts. Meanwhile, above it a capricious ensemble of two violins and viola swaggers its way through flights of melody and jumpy pizzicati to an ecstatic conclusion.

Commissioned by Bromsgrove Concerts with funding provided by Arts Council England, Dances on a Ground was first performed by the innovative Smith Quartet at the Artrix, Bromsgrove, on 27 February 2009.