Thorns

2008

for cello and harp

vc, hp

duration:

4’

for BG

‘Birthday Candle’ for cello and harp. Commissioned by Mobius to celebrate 10 years of playing together, and first performed by Sally Pendlebury and Hugh Webb at the Wigmore Hall, London, on 22nd March 2008.

The title came to me when I looked out of the window and saw a red rose flowering in the middle of January. It seemed like an act of sheer determination and disregard for the season. I had been setting words by Hafez: the love song of the nightingale to the rose, including the line ‘no-one plucks a single rose without the risk of thorn’.

Sally Beamish 2008

Premiere details

Commissioned by Mobius to celebrate 10 years of playing together, and first performed at the Wigmore Hall, London, March 2008.