Alfred Reed

Fourth Symphony

Commissioned for the World Music Festival in Kerkrade, Holland, in July 1993, this work was completed in the summer of 1992, with the composer reading the final proofs in November of that year. The music is in three movements, an opening Elegy built largely on a gentle, insisting, basic rhythm first heard in the flutes under the main theme in the oboe. These two motifs are developed through all of the colours of the wind band, at times sorrowful and song-like, and at other times highly dramatic in character, before the movement finally settles down to a soft close on an E minor chord after having been heard mainly as non-tonal in structure and feeling throughout. The second movement, by way of contrast, a gracious Intermezzo, is developed from a quiet, lilting theme with just a touch of Latin flavour, featuring the woodwind colours of the band cast in 5/8 meter through much of the texture. Joining the wind and soft percussion colours here is the harp, which at times seems almost to be sounding as a large Spanish guitar strumming accompaniments to the various melodic lines. The third movement, again as a major contrast to what has come before, is a fiery Tarantella, drawing on a fugal-like theme that is developed with all of the virtuosity inherent in the modern, fully integrated wind group, and which sweeps along relentlessly to a final, brilliant conclusion both as to its own movement and the work as a whole.