The Nymphs of Spring : Update One
‘The Nymphs of Spring’ began with the idea of writing a piece of music about the transition from winter to spring. Regular readers will know that both Graham and I love Max Richter’s ‘Recomposed’ album, and the original source material for that project; Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ concertos.
Spring is my favourite season and I really look forward to seeing the first signs of spring each winter. The point when the sun rises a little higher in the sky and stays out for a little longer, warming the world a little more each day. Then all of a sudden you start to see the natural world waking up with vibrant colours, bird song and new life.
This was the concept that we started working with - the natural world waking up. The instruments we have chosen are our two instruments the harp (me) and piano (Graham) plus a full string orchestra.
We wrote the opening section relatively quickly but after that progress stalled… badly. Months went by with very little progress, lots of ideas but nothing seemed to quite work with our opening.
I figured the problem was that we didn’t really know where the story of the piece was going next so I got my pen and notepad out (I know, old school, pen and paper!) and I began scribbling. I also started compiling our ‘Enchanted Ballroom’ playlist, full of all the sound research we were doing in conjunction with our scribbling.
Over the next couple of weekends Graham and I crafted the story and I kept getting up to walk it through, often with various ballet pieces playing in the background for inspiration and before I knew it my feet were making the well drilled and rehearsed patterns from my dancing days.
Suddenly the ideas starting flowing like a spring waterfall and it became clear that our Spring piece wanted to be a ballet.
Currently we have just over 5 minutes of music and we are at the point in the story where the nymphs begin their dance to weave their magic with the spring sunshine.
You can listen to a very short snippet below of moment, just before the nymphs begin their dance.
We plan to post regular updates on this project, so if you would like follow our progress please consider subscribing to our newsletter ‘Notes’ to be notified about new posts and content.
