The Dreams That Fly From Me

Cheryl Frances-Hoad 's The Dreams That Fly from Me for solo String Quartet and String Orchestra. Score. "The Dreams That Fly From Me is a ten minute work for solo string quartet and string orchestra. It is in two movements (one slow, one fast) that are played without a break. I spent ten years at the Yehudi Menuhin School (a specialist music school for string and piano) growing up, so this piece cannot help but be strongly influenced by the music I played in the school orchestra during this time. In particular the work is influenced by Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro, Strauss’s Metamorphosen (for twenty-three solo strings) and Tippett’s Concerto for DoubleString Orchestra, although the harmonic language of the piece (which is essentially very jazzy) helps to obscure these musical references. In terms of extra musical inspiration, the work was inspired by a poem by Ivan Goll called Bloodhound which includes the lines “Catch the dreams that fly off from me.... And savage the ankles of my fleeting angel” I was inspired by the idea of a “fleeting angel” which, at a time when I had been having difficulties composing seemed very poignant: the angel of the poem seemed to be a poetic representation of my inspiration. The Dreams That Fly From Me was premiered by the Szymanowsky Quartet and the Northern Sinfonia (Bradley Creswick, director) at Hovingham Hall on the 28th July 2013 as part of the 2013 Ryedale Festival." - Cheryl Frances-Hoad