"Bluebells" for string ensemble.

Isolde writes: "Someone once told me that when you walk through a bluebell-carpeted wood, you 'hear them tinkle' as your brain struggles to compute the information of the over-whelming colour and fragrance and believes it it hearing sound even when there is complete silence.
I have no idea if this is true or if he were ineptly trying to describe synaesthesia, but I adored the concept."

"Bluebells" is a very quiet piece. Although the work is fully scored and the performers are required to finger many complex passages, it comes with the dynamic instruction "pppppppppp or attempt to keep your bow half a millimetre away from the strings at all times". However, there is an inevitable leakage of sound: a few notes slip out and the harmonics created by simply fingering resound as you strain to listen. This is entirely neccessary, else it would be simply "pretending to play". But the ensemble play diligently, following the conductor.

All of this changes in the last fragment, as if tunnelling into the bluebell-insane brain we begin to hear the music being played. It crescendos to a very audible and suddenly very loud ppp. The music is seemingly chaotic and naturalistic, yet effortlessly evokes the colour blue.

Is this just another pretensious re-working of silence? Does it offer anything new to a tired and already over-worked theme? You find yourself longing to hear the notes that are being performed and are almost bent double, leaning in to listen. When the music actually arrives it is quite surprising and cacophonic, strident, even, after straining to hear the few strands that have escaped.

Luckily, it was a very small and contained audience, else the spell may have been broken. The performers and audience alike looked exhausted after the performance.  I rather feel that this was Isolde grinding her old axe again: including the suffering of music and a life of music in performance. But it was intriguing, nonetheless. And I slept deep that night and dreamt of spring.

7/10