|
esperance (1986) |
solo piano - 3'
esperance is a small homage to two composer colleagues, James Erber and Sinan Savaskan, and their sons, then new-born. It has been performed and recorded many times, by pianists as different as Stephanie McCallum and Ian Pace, Michael Finnissy and Simon Docking; it is one of my favourites of my works.
The title refers to a line in King Lear, spoken by Gloucester when he thinks that he is at the top of the cliff outside Dover - Shakespeare Cliff, known to me since childhood, still the highest cliff in the British Isles, but now bounded by a new freeway on one side and the unspeakable Channel Tunnel on the other.
© Chris Dench