Images (I)
Images (I) sets the first of a collection of short non-narrative poems by Richard Aldington. They are written in a style that came to be known as Imagism, an English response to French Symbolist writing.
I have set the piece in a strophic manner, separated by short sections of reduced density.
Wandering step-based solo melodies and countermelodies emerge through a dense texture of static harmony. This was inspired by the images of dappled light emerging through dark pine canopies, and references to vivid colour in the poem. This piece is not a moment-by-moment account of the poem, but seeks to create a snapshot of the mood evoked through its imagery. The alto solo is inspired in part by the free and simply varied folk-styled melodic lines in Berio’s Cries of London.