The Oboe solo version was first performed during a live stream by Melinda Maxwell as part of the London Sinfonietta’s Lockdown Live series on 25 May 2020.

Instrumentation: Oboe (or Oboe and Piano)

Duration: 7’

Scores and parts are available

Programme note:

The title, ‘raw air’ is taken from a poem that seems never to leave my life; ‘Sorpresa’ by Federico Garcia Lorca. It was the basis for a piece I wrote many years ago called ‘Era madrugada’ which I wrote for the Nash Ensemble in 1984! The poem itself was derived from a newspaper article that Lorca read about the discovery of the body of an unknown person in the street with a knife in its chest. Lorca describes the eyes as being open to ‘raw air’. Raw air is what the oboist transforms to express meaningful sound when exhaled through the instrument.

Somewhat alarmingly I discover that ‘raw air’ is the 7th piece that I’ve written for Melinda over the last 40 years of knowing her. The first time I met her was in Huddersfield in the early 80s where she was about to première Harrison Birtwistle’s ‘Pulse Sampler’ in an octagonal room on the university campus. It seems strangely recent to me as I type this. I somehow knew that I’d also be writing for her, but had no idea when or what it would be. ‘Banshee’, ‘Sphinx’, ‘5 settings of E.D.’, ‘disparate’, ‘disparate dos’, ‘Llanto (para las chumberas)’ and now ‘raw air’. Will there be an 8th? Her playing is ever expanding musically and taking on new challenges and has become something quite marvellous. Most people slow down, if anything Melinda is aiming even more for the stars. Long may she do so. It will benefit us all immeasurably.

The piece can be played as a solo, but there is also a simple piano part which can be played alongside.

SH
April 2020

Sorpresa - Poema de la soleá (Cante Jondo)

Muerto se quedó en la calle

con un puñal en el pecho.

No lo conocía nadie.

¡Cómo temblaba el farol!

Madre.

¡Cómo temblaba el farolito

de la calle!

Era madrugada. Nadie

pudo asomarse a sus ojos

abierto al duro aire.

Que muerto se quedó en la calle

que con un puñal en el pecho

y que no lo conocía nadie.

Federico Garcia Lorca

Surprise - Poem of the Soleá (Deep Song)

A dead man lies in the street with a knife in his chest.

Nobody knows him.

How the streetlamp trembled!

‘Mother’.

How the little streetlamp flickered down the street!

Some time between dusk and dawn.

Nobody could look over into his eyes,

open on raw air.

This dead man in the street with a knife in his chest,

Lies there unknown.

[Translation: Simon Holt]