Bright Shiners (2009)

Andrew Ford: Bright Shiners (2009) for solo violin and string orchestra

When the Australian Chamber Orchestra first asked me to compose this piece to celebrate Richard Tognetti’s 20 years at the helm, I immediately heard a kind of sparkling music: high-pitched spiccato dots glittering in relief against slowly drifting harmonics.

This sound never went away, but I added to it a conceit learned from Berg’s Violin Concerto. Just before the end of that piece there is a magical passage in which the soloist alone begins to play a deeply lyrical plaint. It is not long before one, then two violins from the orchestra are inspired to join in. Next, the entire first violin section finds itself pulled into the action, then the second violins and finally the violas, all playing in one big unison. It is as though the solo violin has bewitched the other players, bending them effortlessly to its will.

The title Bright Shiners comes from that mysterious counting song ‘Green Grow the Rushes O’ with its arcane imagery of the two ‘lily-white boys’, six ‘proud walkers’ and eight ‘April rainers’. There are plenty of theories about the meaning of these references and also the identity of the nine ‘bright shiners’, but none that bears much scrutiny. I have no idea what the bright shiners are or were, but I’ve known the song since I was a small boy on the back seat of the family car and, 40-odd years later, the phrase nicely summed up the sparkling music I was imagining.

© A.F.

Reviews

Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto directed the Australian Chamber Orchestra on Monday night in a surprise-packed program of music by Sibelius and Bach, preceded by a bagatelle from Andrew Ford, to celebrate Richard Tognetti's 20-year stand as the ensemble's presiding genius. As things turned out, Ford's Bright Shiners contributed the evening's most novel sounds, its textural interplay making a successful bookend to a night that concluded in another world premiere, Timo Alakotila's ... Sketches from Folkscenes.

Clive O'Connell, The Age

With its imaginative writing Bright Shiners might well have a future in the repertoire of string orchestras. It initially has an eerie, faint and fragile quality with, later, charming suggestions of twittering birdsong in response to what sounded like the mournful cry of some disconsolate fowl.

Neville Cohn, West Australian

Bright Shiners by Andrew Ford, a new commission, was an enjoyable piece with vivid textures and effective, flattering string writing. Its duration suited its musical concept perfectly.

Anna McAlister, Herald Sun