JOHNSTONE – Elegy ‘The Oration of the Bull’ – SOLOIST VIOLA WITH PIANO OR STRING ORCHESTRA [only available from “Creighton’s Collection”]

Other Identification:
Duration: about 7 mins
Written: 1997 / First performance: 1999 (Alicante, Spain)
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‘Elegy’ is a concert work that can be played as a ‘pure’ concert piece, without mention of the programmatic thread – as such, a late romantic intense outpouring with some occasionally more modern touches also present. It is very much of film ambience, for the special quality of the viola sings (in all registers) almost uninterruptedly in long awe-inspiring phrases that would seem to fit like ‘a glove’ to the big screen. There are two performance possibilities, for the work is equally persuasive whether performed in orchestral programmes with string orchestra or with a pianist in recital; taking into account that there are rather different sound conceptions in the accompaniment it will be seen that the tone colours of the orchestration are rather different in each version. The duration is about seven minutes and a half.
The composer has for many years been a staunch defender of animal welfare and animal rights, and this offering is specifically an oration dedicated to the plight of the Spanish bull in the bull-ring (‘la corrida’), which he sees neither as art nor culture. There are no doubts, in Johnstone’s mind, as to the need still (in the twenty-first century) for animal ‘justice’ and to act against unreasonable animal exploitation’.