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Album Info
Release Date: 2012Label: Alba | Chruthachail
Bannockburn features three pieces about battles which took place in 1314, around 200, and 1942. Bannockburn itself was commissioned in 1972 for the National Trust for Scotland for their new visitor centre and the music follows the story of the battle over two days. There is nothing overtly Scottish about it, though some say nearly all my music has the sound of Scotland at its heart, and they may well be right. Throat, for soprano, carnyx and percussion, uses a reproduction of the 2000-year-old boar-headed Celtic war trumpet. The music evokes the period of the Pictish-Roman conflicts. Carrier Strike was composed for a concept of Ian Hamilton Finlay’s in which an ironing board doubles as an aircraft carrier, and becomes a metaphor for both domestic and international warfare. It may seem at first to be light-hearted, but the piece also refers to the Battle of Midway and is not without its disturbing elements.”