Spell (Score and Parts) by Sally Beamish Cello - Sheet Music

SKU: PE.EP73755

ISBN 9790577024400.

I was asked to write this short piano quartet by the Musik in der Pforte concert series, with the brief that the motto of the season 2024 would be a quote by the American writer and mythologist Joseph Campbell (1904-1987 Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.

Joseph Campbell's concept is the hero's journey, which he found in myths of all cultures.

Each concert would take an aspect of this journey as its theme, and for my new work, they suggested to me: The Initiation: Between Courage and Despair.

I decided to relate this to my own journey, and to the moment which marked the beginning of my commitment as a professional composer, which in turn led to a journey - a move from England to Scotland - and then a return twenty eight years later.

The event which initiated this journey was traumatic: the theft of my viola from a house in South London. I knew immediately that somehow I needed to turn the despair I felt into something positive: I stopped playing, moved to Scotland, and focused fulltime on composing.

Twenty-five years later, by an extraordinary turn of events, my youngest child became a luthier. Her first instrument was a viola, which gave me back my voice and a return to performing - coinciding with a return to England. This echoes the aspect of Campbell's journey wherein the protagonist returns with a lost treasure.

This piece is the second* in which I've used a spelling of my own name, translating the letters (SFBEAMISH) into musical notation. All of these are readily available in the German musical scale, apart from MI, which of course is the note E in solfège.

The music explores many emotions, beginning with a gentle exposition leading to a sighing, lyrical second section, then an ebullient scherzo focusing on viola and cello. The music uses solely the letters of my name until the fourth episode, which aband.