Northcott, Bayan: Doubles All Round

Bayan Northcott is a leading writer about music, and a composer who has particularly focused on variation forms – hence the ‘doubles’ of this new work (‘doubles’ being an alternative term for variations, as found for example in Bach); and hence, in celebratory mode, ‘doubles all round’ as the title for this sparkling pièce d’occasion composed at the request of Endymion to celebrate their 30th anniversary.

Doubles All Round would indeed make an ideal five-minute introduction to a new-music concert, or a fascinating contemporary excursus in a classical programme that featured the line up of flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet, horn, violin, cello and piano. The work is launched by a vigorous keyboard prelude, which returns after the third double in a brief cadenza, before the piece is rounded off by the fourth double, quasi una coda.

Bayan Northcott’s collected critical writings, The Way We Listen Now, were published by Plumbago Books in 2009.