John Woolrich

3 Capriccios For Oboe (from the Book of Disquiet)

When the writer Fernando Pessoa died in in Lisbon in 1935, he left behind a large trunk full of poetry, horoscopes, unfinished stories, essays, plays, translations, letters and journals, typed, handwritten or scrawled in Portuguese, English and French. He wrote on the backs of letters, on handbills, envelopes and scraps of paper. He described ‘The Book of Disquiet’ as ‘fragments, fragments, fragments’.
In the spirit of Pessoa, I have made a loose-leaf collection of short pieces: three for strings (Three Fantasias), three for solo oboe (Three Capriccios), three for alto voice and strings (Three Songs) and three for oboe with strings (Three Arias). The songs are settings of texts by Pessoa and the fantasias and arias have titles drawn from ‘The Book of Disquiet’. The performers can make their own selection and order.
John Woolrich