Located in the UK
Located in the USA
Located in Europe
- Peter Dickinson
Monologue (1959)
- Novello & Co Ltd (World)
Programme Note
This sombre Monologue was written for a competition when Peter Dickinson was a graduate student at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. It was known that the contest required quiet music and that the sponsor’s tastes were distinctly conservative. However, since a performance was attached, Dickinson wrote what he wanted regardless of these requirements.
The Monologue is based on the notes, but not the tune, from a phrase in the chorus of ‘People will say we’re in love’ from the 1943 Rogers & Hammerstein musical Oklahoma. This comes at the start – softly in superimposed minor ninths – then a slow chorale develops for three-part solo strings and there are hesitant solos, glissandos and pizzicatos in an atmosphere of continuous uncertainty.
An early performance was in Athens, under Dinos Constantinides – whose Louisiana Sinfonietta played it recently at Baton Rouge, Louisiana - and the British premiere was under Roger Norrington at the College of St Mark and St John, Chelsea, in 1963.
The Monologue is based on the notes, but not the tune, from a phrase in the chorus of ‘People will say we’re in love’ from the 1943 Rogers & Hammerstein musical Oklahoma. This comes at the start – softly in superimposed minor ninths – then a slow chorale develops for three-part solo strings and there are hesitant solos, glissandos and pizzicatos in an atmosphere of continuous uncertainty.
An early performance was in Athens, under Dinos Constantinides – whose Louisiana Sinfonietta played it recently at Baton Rouge, Louisiana - and the British premiere was under Roger Norrington at the College of St Mark and St John, Chelsea, in 1963.