Unveil

Unveil for solo violin by Freya Waley-Cohen.

Written for Tamsin Waley-Cohen as part of an Open Space Residency at Snape Maltings.

This work was composed in 2015 and first performed on 12 May 2015 at the album launch of ‘Soli’ as part of Listenpony at Crypt on the Green, London, by Tamsin Waley-Cohen.

Programme Notes

Approaching this work, I attempted to create a sense of simultaneity of different musical materials through a process of juxtaposition. I began by adapting several of the different characters Permutations into solo material, and expanding on them in this capacity.

While testing material for Permutations in various different acoustics, Andrew and Finbarr recorded me playing the violin in various acoustic settings. For these acoustic experiments, I improvised around the melody which became one of the central themes of both Permutations and Unveil. When writing Unveil, I went back to many of these improvisations to notate them and weave the material into the fabric of the new solo piece. I treated them as the opening of the work, while using the other themes to form a cumulative collage of material leading the listener away from the melodic line gradually. I imagined each of the characters as different interweaving pathways around a central thread, that would eventually fall away to reveal, or unveil the melody in its original form.

Unveil has been recorded by Tamsin Waley-Cohen and released on Signum Classics in June 2017.

• Freya Waley-Cohen

Duration: 10 minutes