Anne De Lucy Songs

Commissioned by and written for Nicola Walker Smith in October 1992, this set of songs takes as its starting point material from The Upside-Down Violin at Expo ’92 in Seville by The Michael Nyman Band and the Orquestra Andalusi de Tetuoan. The Moroccan orchestra plays only monophonically and consequently I wrote a ‘pure’ melody line - that is, one not built on harmony. The harmonic content of Anne de Lucy Songs is thus derived from the melody for the first time in my work. The text is an ode to the great Renaissance theorist and musical speculator Salinas by Fray Luis de Leon.