DESCRIPTION:
Second movement of UK Composer Daniel Basford's Symphony No.1 for Concert Band, 'Prometheus'.

World Premiere Recording, made in 2014
Hertfordshire Wind Sinfonia, cond. Mark Eager
CD available on ASC Records

Programme Note
This symphony began as pure music; it did not tell a story, nor was that my original intention. A work I was planning to compose after the symphony - a tone poem for wind band on the subject of the well-known story of Prometheus - was making virtually no progress, until I realised that the symphony in fact had some parallels with the story. The symphony is therefore not an exact description of the entire story, but rather a commentary on certain parts of it. The main source of inspiration comes from two poems: Byron's 'Prometheus' and Shelley's epic drama 'Prometheus Unbound'.

From a musical and structural point of view the symphony owes much to English symphonists such as Walton and Elgar but also Bax, a composer whose developmental style I empathised with strongly.

The second movement is a wild scherzo. Shelley again provides the text:

Obscurely through my brain,
Sweep awful thoughts, rapid and thick. I feel
Faint, like one mingled in entwining love;
Yet 'tis not pleasure.
Dreams and the light imaginings of men,
And all that faith creates or love desires,
Terrible, strange, sublime and beauteous shapes.

The music is frantic and insistent. This may suggest man's misuse of Prometheus' gift and a certain loss of control. The energy in the music does not let up, even in the quieter central section, and then concludes with even more wild abandon.