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Five short pieces for oboe and piano:

  1. Dedham Vale
  2. Varennes-sous-Dun
  3. The Royal Festival Hall
  4. Newlands Beck
  5. Charlieu

This was transcribed in 2020 from Moments, five songs dating from 1977, to poems by John Barber which celebrate significant moments (and places in England and France) at the start of a relationship.

The transcription embellishes the vocal lines and exploits the wide range of the oboe. The five  pieces are pastoral in style, as the poems are unified by water imagery.

The title of the work is part of a line from the fourth poem. The set is constructed in the form of an arch with the climactic central movement initially evoking the atmosphere of a pseudo-Romantic orchestral concert.

The piano accompaniment uses arpeggiated figures to suggest flowing water and the set is unified further with a persistent motif of a falling fifth within the overall interval of a minor sixth. This recurs in each song, primarily in the accompaniment and predominantly in the bravura piano writing immediately before the soloist’s entry in the central piece.