Commissioned by the National Carillon, Canberra
First performance by Thomas Laue, Canberra International Music Festival, National Carillon, Canberra, 5 May 2017
Andrew Ford: Lin-lan-lone (2016) for carillon
This three-and-a-half-minute miniature was commissioned by the National Carillon in Canberra. Its title comes from Tennyson’s late poem ‘Far-far-away’ with its reference to the ‘mellow lin-lan-lone of evening bells’. If you’re standing beneath the carillon when the piece is played, it will be a moot point how ‘mellow’ the bells are. But I imagined the music heard from the far side of Lake Burley-Griffin, the sound of the bells drifting across.
Lin-lan-lone is dedicated to the memory of Cheryl Ricketts who taught music to generations of children in Robertson, NSW, where I live. I like the thought that her music will continue to ring out from time to time in the Australian capital and sometimes farther afield.
© A.F.