16: Phoenix

It was the 29^th of March 2009 and I was driving back down the F3 yet again. For the first time in months I was excited; there was purpose to my travel, I knew not only where I was going but why.

Phoenix (detail from Aberdeen Bestiary)

The previous night, as I was heading to bed, I had thought of an A major chord hammering gleefully on a piano. The sound in my mind contained the spirit I had been searching for. The question of how the repetition of one common chord could possibly hold the secret of a large work I dared not explore; I was more concerned that the idea would ring true past the night.

In the morning the chord was still dancing lively in my head, so after a quick breakfast I packed my things and made the two hour drive back to Sydney in time for lunch. I said nothing about A major chords or pianos to my wife as we ate; I wanted the idea to remain fresh and unexpressed until I sat down to write.

Phoenix Rising

That afternoon I composed, in rough orchestration, what are now bars 6-18 of part two. Day by day the movement grew effortlessly until, just over a week later, on 6 April I reached bar 274. At this point I was uncertain of the nature of the coda and realised that I needed to have written part one of Lightfall before tackling the last moments of the concerto.

Part one was completed by 22 April and the next day I returned to the part two coda, completing it on 27 April.

Phoenix Flies

This was good timing because The Queensland Orchestra were performing a suite of my music from Mao’s Last Dancer on 1 May and I was taking six days off to head up to Brisbane for the rehearsals and concert and a day or two to relax.

After a rare weekend off I spent a couple of weeks fine-tuning and orchestrating the concerto, inserting what are now bars 195-228 into part two and reworking Sketch 1a into the beginning of the concerto. Sketch 2 went on the head of part two without change.

Phoenix above the World

Lightfall for Horn and Orchestra was finished on 17 May, exactly seven weeks after that final drive down the F3 with an A major piano chord ringing in my head.