About

Thalassa [The Sea] was composed in 1981-1982 and is one of my earliest acknowledged works. Originally it took its place as the last piece in a five movement sequence collectively entitled Pentameron, before common sense prevailed in the form of a recognition that nobody was likely to programme such a leviathan in its entirety, owing both to its length and to its demands on stamina. The movements were therefore separated and the title Pentameron abandoned.

Even on its own Thalassa remains a daunting proposition for the pianist, lasting some twenty-two minutes and seldom relenting from its technical challenges. In very broad pianistic and structural terms it reflects influence from Scarbo, the malevolent anthropomorphic presence in the last movement of Maurice Ravel’s iconic pianistic trilogy Gaspard de la Nuit. This is loosely apparent in the broad introduction, and also in the longer central slow section framed by a pair of expansive scherzo passages, each rising to a tumultuous climax. However, the intention behind Thalassa is not supernaturally menacing but pantheistic and elemental, in an attempt to capture something of the sea in its many moods and weathers. Looking back at it after forty years is in some respects like encountering the thoughts of somebody else altogether, and to my older, possibly wiser self this is plainly the music of a young composer. A more elliptical, subtler harmonic and pianistic approach is evident in Hunt’s Bay (1994; published also by Composers Edition), which weighs in at a mere nine or ten minutes. Nevertheless I continue to receive enquiries about the score of Thalassa and the present edition seeks to address these.

Written well before the advent of such godsends as Sibelius music software, Thalassa languished in manuscript until early 2023. In finally addressing the origination of the score in print, I took the opportunity to prune some of the more egregious pianistic excesses and, in places, to make minor refinements of the harmonic vocabulary, which continues to reveal intermittent debts to composers as diverse as Nielsen, Holst, Ravel, Martinů, Vaughan Williams and Martin.

Thalassa is dedicated to my friend Andrew Lowe-Watson, who gave its first performance at Cambridge in April 1985 and its London première at the Purcell Room in November the same year.

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