Lace

Lace (2000)
Programme note © F L Dunkin Wedd

Conversations with lace-designer Jane Atkinson revealed many parallels in our work. Tension is an obvious link. I was also very interested in negative space, in dealing with the delineation of absence. I wanted to develop these ideas in a piano piece.
I started with an idea from Indian music: when using a rag or scale, you must establish the notes one at a time before using them melodically, setting out your material in advance - like starting each thread with a securing knot.
Begin with middle C; add a tone up (D) and a semitone down (B). A semitone up (C#): a tone down (Bb) - the scale of possible intervals grows. Play notes simultaneously as well as sequentially, and there’s harmony - first two, then three notes played as chords - in lace terms, several threads twisted together.
Having fixed your threads, you can start to do pretty stuff with them. Here it’s jazzy counterpoint, with triplets and semiquavers and two kinds of dotted rhythms, sometimes all four going at once, and swapping from part to part! This section is technically very demanding.
The ending returns to the opening material - tieing up the loose ends.

But you don’t need to know any of this; just listen to the music.

F L Dunkin Wedd
Tonbridge Kent