Programme Notes: Symphonies
Symphony 1 'Yr Wyddfa’ - ‘Snowdon’ Opus 37
Composed in 1989, Symphony No. 1 takes its title from Yr Wyddfa, the Welsh name for Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales. Yet the work is not a conventional piece of musical landscape painting. Its concern is less with the outward appearance of the mountain than with the idea of landscape as movement, scale and ascent.
The symphony unfolds in a single movement as a single, continuous span in which musical ideas are constantly transformed. From the opening, broad melodic gestures are set against an insistent rhythmic activity that generates much of the work's momentum. Rather than presenting sharply separate themes or episodes, the music develops through expansion and contraction: textures gather, orchestral forces accumulate, climaxes are approached over long stretches of time, and moments of considerable power give way to passages of greater transparency and reflection.
The relatively compact orchestra is used with remarkable variety. Individual wind instruments frequently emerge from the texture, while the strings provide much of the music's underlying energy. Brass and percussion are reserved for moments of greater structural weight, so that the enlargement of the orchestral sound becomes part of the symphonic argument rather than merely a matter of colour.
The image of the mountain may therefore be understood less literally than symbolically. There is throughout the work a sense of striving: of movement towards points of arrival which, once reached, do not bring the music to a halt but become the starting point for further transformation.
The symphony eventually achieves a major culmination, yet its conclusion avoids any sense of easy triumph. After the accumulated force of the preceding music, the texture is gradually reduced and the work ends with a sense of arrival rather than conquest.
Yr Wyddfa – Snowdon is thus a symphony of movement, growth and transformation: a journey in which the landscape of Wales becomes, perhaps, an image of something more inward — the experience of striving towards a distant point whose meaning can only be discovered through the journey itself. Written in Leudelange, Luxembourg in 1989, it is dedicated to W. Ifor Jones.
Symphony 2 Opus 87
Written on Christmas Eve, 1995, Symphony No. 2 belongs to an exceptionally concentrated period of creativity in which Dafydd Bullock composed three symphonies - Nos. 2, 3 and 4 — within the space of only five weeks.
In striking contrast to the broad orchestral landscape of the First Symphony, Yr Wyddfa – Snowdon, Symphony No. 2 is written entirely for strings: first and second violins, viola, violoncello and double bass. Its three movements explore the symphonic possibilities of a deliberately restricted instrumental world, creating music whose scale arises not from orchestral mass but from the constantly changing relationships between five independent voices.
The opening movement is spacious and deeply expressive. Individual lines emerge from silence, overlap, diverge and come together, creating a musical argument in which dialogue and counterpoint are as important as melody itself. The lower instruments play a particularly significant role, with the cello and double bass repeatedly contributing not merely harmonic support but expressive and structural weight.
The second movement introduces a more sharply rhythmic world. Here the individual lines become increasingly active, generating momentum through articulation, interaction and changing texture. The music is energetic without becoming heavy, its movement arising from the restless exchange of material between the five instruments.
The finale brings together the symphony's contrasting qualities: rhythmic vitality, lyrical expression and the independence of individual voices. Yet the work ultimately resists a conventional gesture of triumph. After its accumulated activity, the music gradually withdraws, and the symphony disappears a niente, leaving the final impression not of emphatic closure but of sound receding into silence.
Symphony No. 2 was first recorded at the State Opera House in Prague and subsequently performed in Prague at the Klementinum.
In this concentrated and intensely individual work, the symphonic idea is liberated from questions of orchestral size. The drama lies instead in the relationship between musical lines: in their independence, their encounters and their continual transformation. The work is dedicated to Ulrike Wiedenbach and was written in Mersch, Luxembourg.
Symphony 3 Opus 88
Composed in Mersch, Luxembourg, in January 1996 and dedicated to Ulrike Wiedenbach, Symphony No. 3 belongs to an extraordinary period of creative activity in which Dafydd Bullock wrote three symphonies within the space of only five weeks. Like its immediate predecessor, it is scored for a five-part string ensemble of two violins, viola, violoncello and double bass, but the musical world it creates is markedly broader and more volatile.
The work unfolds in four movements, each presenting a different aspect of the relationship between the five instruments. The opening movement moves restlessly between lyricism and fragmentation, allowing individual lines to emerge from the ensemble before drawing them together into more substantial collective statements. Its character is one of continual change: textures expand and contract, moments of expressive breadth are interrupted by more unsettled gestures, and the music seems constantly to question the stability it has only just established.
The second movement introduces a sharply contrasting world of rhythmic energy. Rapid changes between duple and triple metre create a sense of continual instability, yet the music never loses its momentum. The shifting rhythmic ground becomes one of the movement's principal expressive characteristics, while more lyrical gestures occasionally emerge from within the activity, suggesting that the impulse towards song remains present even at the height of the movement's energy.
The third movement returns to a more inward and spacious world. Marked molto espressivo, it allows the five instruments to explore long-breathed melodic lines and more transparent textures, although the underlying sense of instability has not disappeared. The movement eventually dissolves a niente, apparently bringing the symphony to a point of disappearance.
Yet this is not the end. The finale begins after that silence, restoring movement and gradually rebuilding the energy of the work. As it unfolds, the contrasts explored in the earlier movements begin to coexist: rhythmic vitality, contrapuntal independence and lyrical breadth are brought into a new relationship. The symphony finally turns towards a more sustained and cantabile conclusion, ending not in the disappearance of Symphony No. 2 but here in an unexpectedly affirmative act of song.
Symphony No. 3 thus transforms the restricted forces of its string ensemble into a remarkably varied dramatic world. Its five instruments become capable of intimacy and collective power, agitation and stillness, fragmentation and continuity. Within the concentrated circumstances of its composition, the work demonstrates a striking expansion of symphonic possibility: the discovery that a symphony need not depend upon size or fixed formal convention, but can create its own world through the changing relationships of sound, movement and silence.
Symphony 4 Opus 89
Composed in Mersch, Luxembourg, in January 1996, Symphony No. 4 completes an extraordinary period of creative activity during which Dafydd Bullock wrote three symphonies within the space of only five weeks. Like its two immediate predecessors, the work is scored for a five-part string ensemble of two violins, viola, violoncello and double bass, yet it occupies a distinct musical world. In four movements, the symphony brings together rhythmic energy, lyrical breadth and contrapuntal independence within a design of increasing formal coherence.
The first movement begins with an immediate sense of purpose. Firmly articulated rhythms and the active exchange of material between the instruments create a strong forward momentum, while the constantly changing distribution of the musical lines prevents the texture from becoming fixed. Individual instruments emerge briefly from the collective argument, but their voices remain part of a larger process in which energy is continually redirected rather than interrupted.
The second movement opens a broader and more spacious world. Sustained lines and a more expansive sense of time allow the expressive character of the five instruments to come into sharper focus. The ensemble moves between passages of collective sonority and more transparent textures in which individual voices emerge with particular clarity. The contrast with the first movement is considerable, yet the music retains a sense of underlying continuity.
The third movement turns further inward. Its quieter, more restrained character creates a moment of reflection at the centre of the symphony, allowing the relationship between the individual instruments to become more exposed. Here, as elsewhere in the work, the restricted forces of the ensemble become a source of variety rather than limitation. The changing distances between the voices and the alternation between union and separation become part of the expressive substance of the music.
The finale restores a more immediate sense of movement, but its energy gradually develops into something broader and more lyrical. Rather than maintaining a simple opposition between rhythmic propulsion and melodic expression, the movement increasingly allows these two qualities to coexist. The symphony moves towards a sustained conclusion in which the restless activity of the earlier movements is gradually absorbed into a more spacious and settled sonority.
Symphony No. 4 therefore represents a significant stage in the early development of Bullock's symphonic thought. Within the intimate medium of five string voices, it creates a work of considerable structural range, in which contrast does not lead to fragmentation but contributes to an increasingly coherent musical whole.
Symphony 5 ‘Spring' Opus 97
Composed in Buschdorf, Luxembourg, in 1996 and dedicated to Ulrike Wiedenbach, Symphony No. 5, Spring, marks a striking change of scale and colour in Dafydd Bullock's early symphonic development. Following the three preceding symphonies, each written for a five-part string ensemble, the work returns to the resources of the full orchestra. Its title, however, should not be understood as an invitation to a picturesque musical depiction of spring. Rather, the symphony seems to embody the idea of renewal through the expansion and transformation of musical energy.
The opening movement immediately establishes a broad orchestral landscape in which strings, wind and brass continually enter into changing relationships. Full sonorities alternate with more transparent passages, allowing individual instruments and smaller groups to emerge from the larger orchestral fabric. The movement develops through a process of continual transformation, in which melodic ideas and rhythmic gestures acquire new characters as they pass between different instrumental colours.
The second movement introduces a more direct and energetic world. Rhythmic activity becomes increasingly prominent, and the orchestra is set in vigorous motion. Yet the movement is far more than a display of orchestral brilliance. The constantly changing distribution of material gives individual instrumental voices a distinctive role within the larger texture, creating a sense of movement that arises as much from changing relationships as from rhythm itself.
A more reflective atmosphere emerges in the third movement. Here the orchestra becomes more transparent, and the strings in particular create a spacious and inward world. After the activity of the preceding movements, the music allows individual lines greater freedom to breathe, rediscovering within the larger orchestral medium something of the intimacy and independence that had characterised the three string symphonies.
The final movement restores energy and momentum, drawing upon the full range of orchestral colour. As the music develops, however, its vitality is not directed towards a simple gesture of triumph. The accumulated energy is gradually transformed, and the symphony eventually moves towards a more restrained conclusion, ending quietly with pizzicato strings.
Spring is therefore a work in which the return of the orchestra represents more than an increase in instrumental scale. The concentrated explorations of the preceding symphonies have altered the composer's relationship with orchestral sound. Individual voices remain important within the larger ensemble, while the contrasts between mass and transparency, collective power and intimacy, become essential elements of the symphonic argument.
The result is a work of renewal in the deepest musical sense: an orchestral world rediscovered through the experience of concentration.
Symphony 6 Opus 100
Symphony No. 6 marks a significant expansion of Dafydd Bullock’s exploration of the possibilities of the string orchestra. Written for five-part strings, the work unfolds in five contrasting movements and exploits the ensemble not merely as a homogeneous body but as a constantly changing community of individual voices.
The opening movement begins with an expressive melodic line from which a broader musical landscape gradually emerges. Lyricism and momentum are closely connected: what begins in reflective, spacious textures slowly acquires greater energy and rhythmic purpose. The second movement provides a sharp contrast, its rapid movement and restless exchanges generating an atmosphere of propulsion and vitality.
At the centre of the symphony, the third movement turns inward. Here the texture becomes more transparent and exploratory, allowing solo lines, divided strings and contrasting instrumental colours to emerge from the larger ensemble. The distinction between individual and collective voices becomes an important element of the musical argument.
The fourth movement restores a more direct and assertive character, while continuing the symphony’s concern with the transformation and redistribution of musical material. In the finale, rapid sextuplet figures create a powerful sense of continuous motion. These figures pass through different registers and instrumental groups, repeatedly gathering energy and releasing it, before driving the work towards its conclusion.
Throughout the symphony, contrasting elements are rarely allowed simply to remain separate. Lyricism becomes movement; individual lines merge into collective sonority; moments of stillness generate renewed momentum. Symphony No. 6 is therefore shaped less as a sequence of independent movements than as a continuing exploration of contrast, transformation and return. This was written in Buschdorf, Luxembourg in 1997, and is dedicated to Ulrike Wiedenbach.
Symphony 7 ‘Rhagrybudd - Premonition’ Opus 127
Written in Buschdorf, Luxembourg in 2000 and dedicated to the composer's mother, Symphony No. 7 was composed across the period immediately before and after her death. Its Welsh title, Rhagrybudd, meaning Premonition, suggests the awareness of something approaching before it can fully be understood or named. The music does not attempt to describe events, however. Instead, the idea of anticipation seems to shape the symphony from within.
The work unfolds as a single, continuous orchestral structure. It begins quietly and sparingly, with an isolated melodic gesture gradually acquiring companions and expanding into a larger orchestral world. From this restrained beginning, tension and activity accumulate. Broad melodic lines give way to increasingly animated rhythmic figures, individual instruments emerge from and disappear into the orchestral texture, and passages of considerable energy are repeatedly interrupted by moments of stillness and reflection.
Throughout the symphony, there is a persistent sense of movement towards something that remains just beyond reach. Musical ideas gather momentum, disperse and re-form; textures grow in density before suddenly becoming transparent again. The contrast between the power of the full orchestra and the vulnerability of individual instrumental voices becomes an important part of the work's expressive character.
In its closing stages, the music gradually returns to the more spacious world of the opening. Familiar melodic shapes reappear, but they are heard in an altered context. The symphony therefore ends not by providing a conventional resolution, but by returning to its point of departure with a changed perspective.
Rhagrybudd – Premonition is a work shaped by anticipation, memory and transformation. Its emotional power lies not in explicit narrative, but in the sense that the journey has altered the meaning of what was there at the beginning.
Symphony 8 Opus 130
Symphony No. 8 returns to the medium of the string orchestra, but approaches it in a markedly different way from the earlier string symphonies. Written in three movements, the work treats the five-part ensemble as a constantly changing organism, capable of assuming sharply contrasting identities through changes of texture, register, articulation and tempo.
The first movement begins with an immediate sense of purpose, but its onward movement is continually interrupted and redirected. Sustained sonorities alternate with more active writing, changing metres alter the sense of momentum, and lyrical passages emerge from more rhythmically charged material. Rather than following a conventional pattern of thematic development, the music seems to move through a series of contrasting musical environments, each of which changes the listener's perspective on what has gone before.
The second movement opens in a more lyrical and expressive world. Its singing character is gradually disrupted by a sudden acceleration into much faster and more energetic music, before the earlier tempo and atmosphere return. The movement is therefore shaped by contrast, but also by the sense that its apparently different musical states belong to the same continuing process.
In the finale, rhythmic movement becomes increasingly important. Sustained lines, repeated figures, pizzicato and arco textures, sudden changes of speed and moments of unusual instrumental colour continually reshape the character of the music. At one point, the strings are transformed by the removal of vibrato, creating a strikingly different sonority before the earlier warmth of the ensemble gradually returns.
Throughout Symphony No. 8, the string orchestra is never treated as a fixed sound. The same five instrumental groups continually change their relationships and functions, moving between richness and transparency, lyricism and propulsion, collective sonority and individual lines. The symphony's unity lies not in the persistence of a single musical character, but in its continual transformation. Composed in Canach, Luxembourg, the music is dedicated to the composer’s youngest sister.
Symphony 9 ‘Hochkönig’ Opus 186
When Dafydd Bullock first encountered the Hochkönig massif in the Austrian Alps, he was overwhelmed by its physical presence. The vast formation seemed almost to possess its own resonance: immense, vertical and architectural, resembling in its scale and mass a gigantic organ. Symphony No. 9 grew from that experience.
The work does not attempt to describe the mountain in a pictorial sense. Rather, its musical form gradually seeks an orchestral scale capable of responding to the experience of the landscape. The symphony is built around a progressive enlargement of its instrumental resources. It begins with a relatively restrained orchestra of woodwind, timpani and strings. In the second movement the orchestral palette expands with additional wind instruments and harp; the third introduces horns; and only in the finale, Hochkönig, does the full and massive brass force appear.
This gradual expansion gives the whole work the character of an ascent. The symphony begins in a spacious, almost elemental sound-world, from which melodic lines and instrumental colours slowly emerge. Subsequent movements introduce increasing movement, variety and weight, enlarging the musical landscape step by step.
By the final movement, the full brass orchestra has become available. Horns, trumpets, tenor horns, baritone, trombones and tubas transform the scale of the symphonic sound. Yet their arrival is not simply a gesture of grandeur. It represents the culmination of a process that has been unfolding throughout the work: the gradual discovery of a musical language large enough to answer the physical and imaginative force of the mountain itself.
The Austrian landscape inevitably brings with it echoes of the great symphonic tradition associated with that world. The broad sonorities, expansive harmonic space and monumental brass writing may recall Bruckner, while the wider symphonic imagination acknowledges other resonances from the Austro-German tradition. These echoes are neither accidental nor imitative. They are an act of homage: an acknowledgement that landscape, memory and musical inheritance can sometimes speak in the same voice.
Symphony No. 9 therefore does not seek to escape the symbolic weight of its number. Instead, it finds its own answer: a work which begins in restraint, progressively enlarges its world, and finally rises into the full resonance of Hochkönig.
Symphony 10 Opus 190
Written in 2010 in Fachwen, Wales and Canach, Luxembourg, and dedicated to Ulrike Wiedenbach, Symphony No. 10 is conceived as a single, continuous movement. Rather than dividing its argument into separate movements, the work unfolds as an extended musical journey in which contrasting episodes, changes of pace and shifts of orchestral colour emerge from one another without interrupting the larger continuity.
The symphony begins with the strings alone. Other instruments gradually enter the texture, enlarging and modifying the musical landscape as the work progresses. The orchestra is relatively modest in scale, but its resources are used with considerable flexibility. Woodwind, horn, trumpet, timpani and harp appear and disappear according to the changing requirements of the music, while the strings remain the principal thread running through the entire structure.
Throughout the work, musical ideas are continually renewed. Passages of sustained breadth give way to more animated and rhythmically active music; dense orchestral textures dissolve into individual instrumental lines; moments of accumulated energy are followed by withdrawal and renewed expansion. Yet these changes never divide the symphony into separate entities. The sense is always of one continuing journey.
In its later stages, the music gathers considerable momentum and eventually reaches a powerful orchestral climax. This, however, is not treated as a conventional final peroration. The accumulated energy gradually disperses, and the symphony moves towards an increasingly transparent conclusion in which the large orchestral structure with which the work has travelled so far is finally reduced once again to a more exposed and restrained sonority.
Symphony No. 10 is therefore a work concerned less with arrival than with continuation. Its unity lies in the ability of the music to change direction without losing its sense of purpose. New landscapes continually appear, but the journey never stops.
Symphony 11 'Bergsymphonie - Mountain Symphony’ Opus 191
With its title Bergsymphonie—“Mountain Symphony” - Symphony No. 11 belongs to a group of works in which landscape provides an important imaginative stimulus. Yet this is not a descriptive symphony in any literal sense. The music does not attempt to depict a particular climb or tell a specific story. Instead, the idea of the mountain seems to lie behind the work's contrasts of energy and stillness, movement and reflection, breadth and intimacy.
The first movement movement opens with a strong sense of purpose. Its flowing 6/8 rhythm creates an impression of sustained forward movement, while the orchestra gradually expands the musical landscape around it. There is physical energy here, but also a feeling of scale: the music seems continually to open out, as though each new stage of the journey reveals a further horizon.
The second movement provides the symphony's point of repose. Marked cantabile, it moves into a slower and more lyrical world in which the directness of melody becomes central. After the activity of the opening movement, the music seems to pause and contemplate its surroundings. The sense of landscape remains, but it has become more inward and reflective.
The finale restores momentum with renewed energy and rhythmic vitality. Its course, however, is far from straightforward. Episodes of activity are interrupted by moments of hesitation and change, and the music repeatedly alters its perspective. A later return to the flowing 6/8 rhythm recalls the world of the opening movement, but from a different vantage point.
The symphony ultimately avoids any conventional gesture of triumph. After its energetic final movement, the music gradually withdraws into a quiet conclusion. Rather than presenting the mountain as something conquered, Bergsymphonie leaves the listener with a sense of distance and stillness.
In this way, the work may be heard as a journey through contrasting states of experience: physical movement, lyrical contemplation and renewed energy, finally giving way to repose. The mountain remains throughout—not as a literal subject, but as an idea of scale, perspective and the changing relationship between human experience and the world around us.
The score was completed in Hinterthal and Luxembourg in 2011 and 2012.
Symphony No. 12 'Hallstatt' Op 204
Symphony No. 12 takes its inspiration from Hallstatt, the Austrian lakeside town whose extraordinary beauty conceals a history extending back through many centuries. The four movements approach the place from different perspectives: landscape, ancient history, cultural tradition and, finally, religious conflict and remembrance.
The opening movement, Hallstättersee, evokes the world of the lake itself. The music grows from a constantly changing orchestral texture in which strings and harps play an important part, creating a sense of movement, depth and shifting perspective. This is not descriptive music in any literal sense; rather, the lake becomes the symphony's first environment, a place of continual motion and changing light.
The second movement, Keltensalz, turns from the visible landscape towards the ancient history beneath it. Hallstatt's identity is inseparable from its long association with salt, and the music adopts a more inward and reflective character. The past is not reconstructed or illustrated. Instead, it seems to emerge gradually from the texture of the music, suggesting the accumulated memory of a place whose history reaches far beyond the present.
With Unterbrochener Ländler, the symphony enters the world of Austrian cultural tradition. A Ländler is suggested, but the dance is never allowed to establish an uncomplicated continuity. Its progress is repeatedly interrupted, diverted and transformed, this principally by the remembered sight of twenty tuba players crossing the lake in a large salt barge, playing a deep minor key chorale. The familiar becomes unstable, and tradition is heard not as something fixed and preserved, but as something remembered, disrupted and reshaped.
The final movement, In Memoriam Ubi Caritas, introduces the darkest historical dimension of the work. It refers to the religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Hallstatt and to the pogroms, persecution and forced expulsions that took place there. Against this history stands the title's reference to Ubi Caritas, with its invocation of love and charity. The contrast between ideal and reality gives the movement its particular emotional force.
The finale does not unfold as a simple elegy. Its changing tempos, agitation and moments of reflection create a far more troubled musical landscape in which conflict and remembrance coexist. The music gathers considerable energy before eventually returning to a slower and quieter world. This final withdrawal offers no easy resolution and does not attempt to erase the violence of the past. Instead, it becomes an act of remembrance.
Taken as a whole, Hallstatt reveals a place through successive layers of experience. The beauty of the lake, the ancient history of salt, the persistence of cultural tradition and the memory of religious persecution all belong to the same landscape. Symphony No. 12 is therefore not simply a portrait of Hallstatt, but a meditation on the way in which places themselves contain history—sometimes visible, sometimes hidden, and sometimes impossible to forget. Written in Hallstatt, Vienna, Austria - Venice, Italy, - Hinterthal, Austria and Canach, Luxembourg, in 2012
Ich besuchte Hallstatt zum ersten Mal 2011, dann wieder 2012. Ich war nicht nur von der Schönheit der Lage beeindruckt, sondern hauptsächlich von dem Wiederhall der bewegten Geschichte dieser Stadt.
Die Symphonie umfasst vier Sätze:
1. Hallstätter See, mit seinen Strömungen und unterschiedlichen Temperaturen in den verschiedenen Wassertiefen.
2. Keltensalz, mit einem Marschrhythmus, der an die Mühseligkeit des Salzabbaus seit uralten Zeiten von dem oberhalb Hallstatt liegenden Berg erinnern soll.
3.Unterbrochener Ländler- typische österreichische Idylle, gestört und verzerrt durch meine Erinnerung an Choräle in Moll, gespielt von 20 Tubaspielern, die in 2011 den See in einer Salzbarge überquerten.
4.In Memoriam Ubi Caritas, reine gregorianische Melodie, die unterbrochen wird durch "ein feste Burg ist unser Gott", als Erinnerung an die fürchterliche Nacht, als die protestantische Bevölkerung, - nicht nur in Hallstatt, sondern überall in Österreich - als Akt von religiöser Säuberung oft innerhalb von 30 Minuten Vorwarnung ihre Häuser verlassen mußten und einer ungewissen Zukunft in der Ferne ausgesetzt waren.
Zum Schluß des Satzes kehrt das See-Thema zurück, die Idylle setzt sich durch trotz alledem.
Symphony No. 13 'Attersee' Op 211
Written in Hinterthal, Austria and Canach, Luxembourg in April 2013, Symphony No. 13 takes its inspiration from the Austrian landscape surrounding the Attersee and is dedicated In Memoriam Gustav Mahler. The connection is more than geographical. Mahler's music has become inseparable from our imaginative sense of the Austrian landscape, and this symphony explores the meeting point between place, memory and musical inheritance. The work is cast in three movements, forming a broad journey from spacious lyricism through intense movement and transformation towards a final, more reflective perspective.
The first movement opens slowly and expansively. Melodic lines emerge within a broad orchestral landscape in which woodwind, horns, harp and strings play important roles. The music suggests space and distance, but it is not a static pastoral scene. The landscape is alive with movement, and the initial breadth gradually gives way to greater activity and contrast. By the end of the movement, the music returns to a more spacious and contemplative world, though the experience of the journey has already altered the perspective.
The second movement forms the great central span of the symphony. Beginning with immediate rhythmic energy, it develops into an extended orchestral journey in which momentum, colour and character are continually transformed. The movement does not follow a simple path from beginning to end. Instead, it passes through changing musical landscapes, allowing contrasting textures and instrumental colours to emerge from its underlying sense of propulsion. In its scale and willingness to encompass widely differing emotional and orchestral worlds, the movement forms the dramatic heart of the symphony.
The final movement begins in a quieter and more restrained atmosphere. After the immense energy of the central movement, this return to reflection has a particular expressive significance. The symphony seems to look once more towards the landscape with which it began, but from a changed perspective. What has been experienced cannot be set aside; the journey has altered the way in which the world is seen.
The dedication to Gustav Mahler is not an invitation to hear the work as imitation or pastiche. Rather, it acknowledges a musical inheritance. Mahler's presence may be felt in the symphony's willingness to embrace large spans of time, contrasting emotional states and expansive orchestral landscapes, while the music remains entirely within its own voice. Attersee is therefore both a response to a particular place and an act of musical remembrance. Landscape and memory become inseparable. The lake and its surroundings provide the physical setting, while the dedication places that setting within the larger history of Austrian symphonic music. The result is a work concerned not simply with what a landscape looks like, but with what it can contain: movement, distance, memory and the continuing presence of music from the past.
Symphony 14 ‘Venice' Opus 201
Symphony No. 14, Venice, is a musical response to one of Europe's most extraordinary cities. Rather than attempting a literal description of Venice or following a specific narrative, the symphony approaches the city through two contrasting aspects of its identity: the grandeur and mystery of La Serenissima, and the irrepressible energy and brilliance associated with its great musical tradition.
The first movement, Serenissima, takes its title from the historic name by which Venice has long been known: La Serenissima, “the Most Serene”. The music evokes a city in which magnificence and melancholy, splendour and decay, stillness and movement coexist. Venice is never simply picturesque. Behind its familiar beauty lies an extraordinary sense of history, and the movement allows this atmosphere to emerge through broad orchestral sonorities, changing perspectives and moments of reflective calm.
There is a sense of the city itself gradually revealing its different faces. Grandeur is balanced by intimacy, while the music moves between more expansive orchestral statements and passages of greater transparency. The result is not a postcard portrait of Venice, but an imaginative encounter with its particular atmosphere: a city suspended between past and present, between the solidity of its architectural monuments and the constantly shifting reflections of water.
The second movement, Vivaldissimo, provides an immediate and vivid contrast. Here Venice is heard through the energy of its musical life and, in particular, through the exhilarating spirit associated with Antonio Vivaldi and the city that formed his musical world. The title is deliberately playful. This is not an attempt to imitate Vivaldi or to write pastiche, but rather to allow something of his vitality, rhythmic impulse and brilliance to enter a modern symphonic language.
The movement is characterised by greater energy and momentum, with lively orchestral writing and a sense of continuous invention. If Serenissima contemplates Venice, Vivaldissimo sets it in motion. The city becomes brighter, more animated and more theatrical, its musical past transformed into a fresh symphonic experience.
Together, the two movements present contrasting but complementary images of Venice. Serenissima looks towards its beauty, history and atmosphere; Vivaldissimo celebrates its energy, colour and musical imagination. The symphony does not seek to explain Venice or to encompass all that the city represents. Instead, it offers two distinct responses to a place whose visual and musical identities have inspired artists for centuries.
In Symphony No. 14, Venice becomes both landscape and sound: at once contemplative and exuberant, ancient and alive. It was composed in Canach, Luxembourg, in April 2013
Symphony 15 'Jedermann - Everyman’ Opus 217
Symphony No. 15, Jedermann – Everyman, composed in Hinterthal, Austria, in the summer of 2013, was inspired by the celebrated production of Hugo von Hofmannsthal's Jedermann performed as part of the Salzburg Festival in the square before Salzburg Cathedral. The setting itself is inseparable from the work's imaginative world: a drama concerning human life, wealth, judgement and mortality enacted in the open air beneath the monumental presence of the Cathedral.
The symphony does not attempt to retell the play scene by scene. Instead, it responds to the theatrical, spiritual and human atmosphere created by the production. The title retains the universal significance of Everyman, but the music grows from a particular experience of theatre and place, in which private human experience is set against an immense architectural and religious background.
The opening movement begins with immediate energy, as though the drama were already in progress. The strings set the musical world in motion before the orchestra gradually expands around them, creating a succession of contrasting dramatic states. Large gestures are balanced by moments of greater intimacy and exposure, suggesting the changing perspectives of a theatrical action in which the individual is repeatedly confronted by forces larger than himself.
The second movement, Wiesenblasen mit Schatten, turns towards a more reflective world. Its quieter and more restrained passages provide a contrast to the energy of the opening, but the sense of drama is never entirely absent. The music repeatedly moves between expansion and withdrawal, between the public scale of the symphony and a more inward perspective.
The third movement, Scherzo für Anton Bruckner, introduces another explicitly Austrian element. The homage to Bruckner belongs naturally within a symphony inspired by the cultural world of Salzburg and its Festival. Yet the movement is not an imitation. Rather, it acknowledges a great musical inheritance while retaining its own energetic and distinctive character.
The finale, Ask not for whom the bell tolls ..., brings the central theme of mortality into focus. The tubular bells form an important part of the movement's sound world, giving the music an inevitable symbolic resonance and evoking the chilling sound of the Cathedral bells during the production. Yet the finale is not a conventional funeral march. The music remains active and dramatic, moving between powerful orchestral statements and more reflective passages before gradually withdrawing towards a quiet conclusion.
In this context, the final stillness acquires particular significance. The drama inspired by Jedermann has brought the symphony face to face with mortality, but the conclusion does not seek either theatrical catastrophe or easy consolation. Instead, the music withdraws into reflection.
Jedermann – Everyman is therefore both a response to a particular Salzburg experience and a meditation on a universal human subject. Inspired by theatre performed before the Cathedral, the symphony transforms that public spectacle into an orchestral journey in which drama, tradition, mortality and reflection become inseparable.
Symphony 16 ‘St. Bartholomä’ Opus 219
Symphony No. 16, St. Bartholomä, written in Canach, Luxembourg, in April 2013 was inspired by the annual pilgrimage from Maria Alm through the high Alpine landscape to St. Bartholomä on the Königssee, a journey of some thirty-five kilometres. The composer undertook the pilgrimage three times, and the symphony follows and evokes the experience of that demanding journey: the ascent through darkness, the coming of dawn, the mountain Mass, the crossing of the Steinerne Meer, arrival at the Kärlingerhaus, and the final descent through the Saugasse towards the Königssee. The work is cast in four movements, whose titles trace the route of the pilgrimage.
The first movement, Nachtaufstieg – Sonnenaufgang – Bergmesse, begins with the sense of movement through darkness. The journey starts not with a panoramic view of the mountains but from within them: the steady physical rhythm of the ascent, the gradual awakening of the landscape and the slow emergence of daylight. The arrival of the sun transforms the experience of the journey, leading eventually towards the mountain Mass, where physical exertion and spiritual observance become part of the same experience.
Über das steinerne Meer forms the second stage of the journey. The vast rocky landscape of the Steinerne Meer presents a different kind of challenge: open, exposed and elemental. Here the human traveller is surrounded by a landscape whose scale seems to dwarf individual experience. Yet the journey continues. The movement evokes not only the physical character of the terrain but also the persistence required to cross it.
The third movement, Kärlingerhaus, brings a sudden change of atmosphere. After the solitude and exposure of the mountains comes the human world of the mountain refuge. The energy and vitality of the movement reflect arrival, companionship and the release of tension after the demands of the journey.
The finale, Aufbruch – Saugasse – Königssee, begins the final stage. Departure is followed by the descent through the Saugasse and the long movement towards the Königssee. The symphony thus returns to the idea with which it began: physical movement through landscape. But the direction has changed. The ascent through darkness has become a descent towards the lake, and the traveller who arrives is no longer the traveller who set out.
St. Bartholomä is therefore not simply an Alpine landscape symphony. It is a symphonic reimagining of a journey personally undertaken by the composer. The mountains are not observed from a distance or treated as picturesque scenery. They are experienced from within: through darkness and daylight, effort and endurance, solitude and companionship, landscape and spiritual ritual.
The result is a work in which the journey itself becomes the symphonic form.
Symphony 17 ‘Winter' Opus 222
Symphony No. 17, Winter, follows the unfolding of the winter season through four movements: November, Advent, Christmas and January. Rather than presenting winter as a single landscape or atmospheric condition, the symphony explores the changing experience of time as the year moves from the first darkening of November, through anticipation and celebration, towards the quieter world which follows.
The opening movement, November, begins in a restrained and inward-looking atmosphere. Much of the orchestral world is initially withheld, allowing the music to emerge gradually from a limited and subdued texture. There is a sense of transition: the year has begun to withdraw, the light is changing and the world seems to be preparing for the season to come.
Advent introduces a more active and purposeful character. The stillness of November gives way to movement and expectation. Advent is not presented simply as a period of solemn waiting, but as a time in which anticipation creates its own energy. The music acquires a greater sense of direction, as though something is approaching.
The third movement, Christmas, provides the emotional centre of the symphony, but in an unexpected way. It begins quietly and with considerable restraint. Rather than celebrating Christmas through outward splendour, the music turns towards stillness and reflection. After the anticipation of Advent, Christmas represents a moment in which time itself seems briefly to pause.
The final movement, January, takes the symphony beyond Christmas. The celebration has passed, and a more exposed and transparent world emerges, but with some interruptions - there is perhaps more than a hint of St. Petersburg at the close of the 19th century: ballroom dancing and manic sleigh rides - but they are not real …..
The movement does not seek a grand symphonic conclusion. Instead, it gradually withdraws, ending in a remarkably reduced and delicate texture and is central to the conception of the whole work. Christmas is not the destination. Winter continues.
Winter is therefore a symphony about the passing of time: anticipation, arrival and what remains afterwards. The four movements trace a progression from the threshold of the season towards its quieter aftermath, revealing winter not as a fixed image but as an experience which continually changes.
The symphony was completed in Canach, Luxembourg on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, 2013, and is dedicated to Lin and David Charlston.
Symphony 18 Opus 232
Symphony No. 18 is a four-movement work written in Canach, Luxembourg in 2014. It is without subtitle or programme. After several symphonies inspired by particular places, experiences and seasonal ideas, the work turns towards a more abstract conception in which musical movement, contrast, rhythm and orchestral colour provide the essential drama.
The first movement begins with immediate energy. Its vigorous rhythmic impulse establishes a strong sense of propulsion, but this momentum is repeatedly interrupted by moments of suspension. The movement therefore develops through a tension between continuity and disruption, pressing forward while continually questioning its own direction.
The second movement offers a marked contrast. The musical space becomes broader and more reflective, with sustained lines and more exposed textures replacing the physical drive of the opening. Rather than simply providing repose, however, the movement creates a different kind of tension: one based upon distance, silence and the relationship between isolated gestures.
The third movement restores speed and rhythmic volatility. Abrupt interruptions become an important part of its character, giving the music a playful but unpredictable quality. Energy is repeatedly released, interrupted and renewed, creating a movement in which silence itself becomes part of the rhythmic argument.
The finale begins unexpectedly, with a more spacious and restrained sound world. Gradually, however, the music gathers momentum and orchestral weight. Earlier elements of rhythmic vitality and interruption are absorbed into a broader symphonic perspective, leading eventually towards a decisive conclusion.
Symphony No. 18 demonstrates that a symphonic journey does not require an external programme. Its drama arises from the behaviour of the music itself: movement and stillness, momentum and interruption, intimacy and orchestral power.
The result is a work in which the symphony becomes its own landscape.
Symphony 19 ‘Selbhorn' Opus 234
Symphony No. 19, Selbhorn, is inspired by the imposing Alpine mountain which dominates the landscape around Hinterthal. Unlike a conventional musical landscape, however, the symphony does not attempt simply to portray the mountain through picturesque orchestral effects or to follow a narrative journey across it. Its central compositional idea is more direct: the physical contours of the Selbhorn itself provide an important basis for the musical design. It was written in Hinterthal, Austria, in 2014.
The symphony is cast as a single continuous movement. As the imagined line of the mountain rises and falls, the tessitura of the music responds to its changing profile. The work therefore begins in the depths of the orchestra and develops through changing registers and orchestral perspectives, tracing a large-scale musical contour related to the physical shape of the mountain.
The opening establishes a powerful foundation in the lowest instrumental registers. From this low-lying musical landscape, the orchestra gradually expands and rises. As the work develops, increasing activity, changes of texture and expanding orchestral colour accompany the movement through different levels of musical space. The ascent is not merely a matter of increasing volume or intensity; it is expressed through the actual placement of the music within the orchestra's register.
This principle gives the symphony its distinctive sense of continuity. Rather than dividing the musical argument into separate movements, the work unfolds as one extended span in which changing energy, orchestral colour and tessitura form part of a single trajectory. Moments of greater activity and weight are balanced by more transparent and reflective passages, while the changing register continually alters the listener's perspective.
The mountain is therefore present not simply as an image or atmosphere but as an underlying structural force. Its shape becomes musical.
In Selbhorn, landscape is translated into sound at a fundamental level. The listener does not merely contemplate the mountain through the music; the music itself follows its contours, rising and falling across the orchestral landscape before eventually receding into a quieter conclusion.
Symphony 20 'The Miracle Of Zattere’ Opus 238
Symphony No. 20, The Miracle of Zattere, was inspired by an encounter on the Zattere in Venice. There, the composer heard an elderly and evidently unhappy street violinist playing fragments of familiar musical themes. His playing was poor, the phrases incomplete and the musical thoughts repeatedly abandoned before they could properly develop.
The encounter remained in the composer's imagination. On the journey home, he began to wonder what might happen if, for one brief moment, the true spirit of music were to release the player from the technical limitations which prevented him from expressing what he perhaps wished to say. What if the broken fragments could suddenly become melody? What if the scraping, mechanical gestures could give way, just once, to genuine lyricism?
This is the starting point of The Miracle of Zattere.
The solo violin represents the unknown street musician. At the opening of the symphony it plays alone, producing broken and awkward fragments, beginning musical thoughts which it seems unable to complete. The orchestra enters as a different musical reality: a world in which the fragments can expand, sing and develop into something beyond the apparent abilities of the solitary player.
Gradually, the symphony opens into music of increasing breadth and lyricism. The solo violin is no longer confined entirely to its hesitant and mechanical gestures but becomes part of a much larger musical world. For a time, the impossible seems to happen. The musician is allowed to soar, and the symphony discovers a deeply lyrical and expressive voice.
The miracle, however, cannot last.
Later, the characteristic broken solo violin returns, bringing the listener back to the reality from which the symphony began. The anonymous musician remains on the Zattere, and his limitations have not been permanently overcome. Yet, for one extraordinary moment, the music has allowed us to hear not simply what he could play, but what he might have expressed had his imagination been equal to his hands - and his hands equal to his imagination.
The Miracle of Zattere is therefore not a story of transformation in any permanent or conventional sense. It is the story of a momentary act of musical grace. The street violinist remains anonymous and unchanged, but for a brief time the spirit of music allows him to become, in the imagination, the musician he perhaps always wished to be.
The symphony was composed in Hinterthal, Austria in the summer of 2014 and is dedicated to the unknown street violinist who inspired it.
Symphony 21 'Mosel’ Opus 249
With Symphony No. 21, written in Canach, Luxembourg in June 2015, Dafydd Bullock turns towards the landscape and cultural history of the Mosel valley. Yet this is not a conventional pastoral or geographical symphony. The river itself is only one element within a much larger sense of place, in which landscape, history, wine, politics and the continuing presence of the past become inseparable.
The three movements offer three contrasting perspectives.
The first, Mosel und Römer, brings together the river and the Roman world which has left such a profound mark upon the region. The music grows from an initially restrained string texture, gradually expanding as individual instrumental voices emerge and the full orchestra begins to assert itself. There is a sense of movement, perhaps the relentless marching rhythm of the Roman soldiers,
through a landscape in which the natural world and the accumulated presence of history coexist.
The second movement, Mosel, Wein und Marx, takes a more exuberant and unpredictable course. Its title brings together three very different aspects of the region: the river, the vineyards and the intellectual and political legacy associated with Trier, birthplace of Karl Marx. The music responds with energy, contrast and rapid changes of character, moving between large orchestral gestures and more individual instrumental episodes. The happily flowing wine festivals are interrupted by the first line of the Internationale - an evocation of Karl Marx
The final movement, Die Glocken von Trier, turns towards one of the most characteristic sounds of the city. From an initially spacious and transparent texture, the music gradually gathers momentum and weight. Individual instrumental voices emerge before the orchestra is drawn together in an increasingly powerful conclusion, enhanced by elements of the Mosel Hymn.
Throughout the symphony, the Mosel is not simply portrayed as scenery. It becomes the setting for a dialogue between different layers of time: the Roman past, the cultural traditions of the region, the world of ideas and the sounds that continue to define the landscape today. In Mosel, place becomes something more than geography. It becomes history, memory and identity.
Symphony 22 'Waldjahreszeiten - Forest Seasons’ Opus 250
In Symphony No. 22, Waldjahreszeiten - Forest Seasons - Dafydd Bullock returns to one of the central concerns of his symphonic music: the relationship between landscape and human experience. The work follows the changing life of the forest through the cycle of the year, moving from Winter through Spring and Summer to Autumn. Rather than separating the four seasons into four independent movements, however, Bullock joins Spring and Summer within the large central movement, creating a continuous musical progression from awakening to growth and fulfilment.
The opening movement, Winter, begins in a world of restraint and transparency. Individual wind instruments emerge from a quiet orchestral background, creating a sense of stillness that is nevertheless inhabited by movement and expectation. As the music develops, the orchestral texture gradually broadens and acquires increasing energy and weight. Winter is not presented as complete immobility, but as a landscape in which life continues beneath an apparently dormant surface.
The central movement begins with Spring, bringing an immediate transformation. Rapid string movement sets the music in motion, while solo wind instruments and larger orchestral forces enter into an increasingly varied and energetic succession of episodes. Spring is not a gentle awakening but a release of activity, in which new musical ideas and colours continually emerge from the restless orchestral current.
At letter J, the movement passes into Summer, and the change is marked explicitly in the score. The transition is more than a continuation of Spring. The music enters a new seasonal space, allowing the energy generated by the earlier movement to broaden and mature. The great central movement therefore traces a continuous process: life first awakening and multiplying, then reaching a fuller and more expansive state.
The final movement, Autumn, introduces a broader and more reflective perspective. After the extended growth and energy of the central movement, the music acquires a greater sense of space. Individual instrumental voices and sustained orchestral textures become increasingly important, while moments of considerable power alternate with passages of growing transparency. The symphony gradually moves towards a quieter conclusion, not as an ending of the natural cycle but as a moment of repose after its full unfolding.
Throughout Waldjahreszeiten, the forest is more than a landscape to be described. It becomes an environment in which the changing conditions of life can be experienced. The orchestra continually moves between individual voices and collective sonority, between stillness and activity, creating a symphonic landscape in which the passage of the seasons becomes a larger meditation on growth, maturity and change.
Written in Canach, Luxembourg, in June 2015.
Symphony 23 ‘Traunsee' Opus 263
Symphony No. 23 takes its inspiration from the Traunsee, one of the great lakes of the Austrian Salzkammergut. In contrast to the monumental landscapes and historical associations that had inspired several of Dafydd Bullock's earlier symphonies, Traunsee is conceived on a more intimate orchestral scale. Scored for flute, oboe, two clarinets, horn, harp and strings, the work explores the changing character of the landscape through a single continuous movement.
The symphony opens with flowing string movement, supported by the gentle presence of the harp and a broad line in the horn. From this transparent beginning, the musical argument gradually expands as the woodwinds enter and the various instrumental colours begin to interact. Throughout the work, passages of movement and energy alternate with broader and more spacious episodes, allowing the same landscape to be experienced from continually changing perspectives.
The reduced orchestra is central to the character of the symphony. Individual instruments are allowed to retain a strong sense of identity, and the music frequently moves between intimate chamber-like combinations and the fuller sonority of the complete ensemble. The resulting contrasts create a wide range of expression without requiring the large orchestral forces of some of the preceding symphonies.
As the work progresses, the music gathers increasing energy and dramatic weight. Yet its climactic passages arise not from sheer orchestral mass but from the gradual accumulation of material and colour. After the most substantial developments of the later sections, the symphony begins to withdraw. The tempo slows, the texture becomes increasingly transparent and the music returns to the flowing world from which it first emerged.
The conclusion does not seek a grand final gesture. Instead, the movement subsides into a quieter continuation, leaving the impression that the musical journey has taken place within a landscape which itself remains unchanged.
In Traunsee, the lake is therefore not simply a subject to be described. It becomes a constant presence against which movement, change and transformation can unfold. It was written in Hinterthal, Austria in August, 2017 and is dedicated to Britta and Raimund Lang.
Symphony 24 ‘Bricha' Opus 279
In 1947, many Jewish Displaced Persons in post-war Europe faced an uncertain and often desperate future. Among the routes used in the journey towards Palestine, later Israel, was the crossing of the Alps into Italy through the Krimmler Achental. The British blockade made legal passage increasingly difficult, and the underground organisation known as Bricha - the Hebrew word for “flight” or “escape” — helped thousands of Jewish survivors and displaced people to leave Europe and make their way towards a new life.
Dafydd Bullock's Symphony No. 24, Bricha - written in the Krimmler Achenthal and Hinterthal, Austria and in Senheim, Germany, in August 2018 - is a tribute to the endurance, desperation and determination of those who undertook this journey. The work is conceived as a single continuous movement, its uninterrupted form reflecting the physical and emotional necessity of continuing onwards.
The symphony begins in immediate motion. There is no extended introduction or picturesque evocation of the Alpine landscape. The mountains are not presented as objects of admiration, but as terrain which must be crossed. Relentless rhythmic movement establishes a sense of urgency, and throughout the work the music passes through changing conditions of tension, struggle, exhaustion and renewed determination. Within this collective movement, individual instrumental voices repeatedly emerge. These moments of greater intimacy provide an important contrast to the larger orchestral forces, suggesting the human individuality that lies within every historical movement. The journey may be shared by many, but it is experienced by each person separately.
As the symphony progresses, its emotional character gradually begins to change. Fragments of the Jewish song Hava Nagila appear with increasing frequency, at first woven into the continuing symphonic argument and later becoming increasingly recognisable and celebratory. Their emergence does not erase the suffering or danger of the journey. Rather, the possibility of celebration grows out of endurance itself.
The final stages of Bricha therefore transform the symphony's original urgency into something more affirmative. The work does not offer a simplistic picture of victory, nor does it attempt to forget the ordeal which has preceded it. Instead, it arrives at a hard-won sense of identity, survival and the recovery of joy.
In Bricha, the Alpine landscape is no longer simply a source of musical inspiration. It becomes the physical setting of a human journey in which the need to continue, against extraordinary difficulty, is itself the central dramatic force.
Symphony 25 Opus 286
Symphony No. 25, Opus 286, is inscribed simply für Ulrike. The work unfolds as a four-movement symphonic journey in which contrasting states of energy, tension and reflection are brought into a closely connected whole. Its musical language is direct and rhythmically purposeful, yet beneath its apparent simplicity lies a persistent concern with transformation: musical figures recur, change their surroundings, alter their character and acquire new significance as the Symphony progresses.
The opening movement establishes much of the Symphony's fundamental vocabulary. A firm rhythmic pulse is repeatedly set against longer melodic and harmonic spans, while the gradual expansion of the orchestral texture gives the music a sense of growth rather than of abrupt sectional contrast. The writing is particularly attentive to the relationship between repeated rhythmic figures and sustained sonorities, allowing momentum and breadth to coexist.
The second movement provides a different kind of experience, opening the musical space and allowing individual instrumental voices a greater degree of prominence. Its contrasts are less concerned with simple opposition than with changing degrees of density and intensity. The orchestra becomes a medium through which ideas are passed from one instrumental colour to another, so that continuity is maintained even when the surface of the music changes considerably.
The third movement is the most kinetic part of the Symphony. It begins with an unusually transparent string texture and develops through a succession of transformations in which musical gestures migrate between instrumental groups. The music repeatedly gathers momentum, expands into fuller orchestral sonorities and then withdraws again, creating an impression of restless movement rather than conventional scherzo-like playfulness. Its returning material is continually re-coloured and re-contextualised, and the recurrence of the principal ideas towards the end of the movement gives the whole process a strong sense of coherence.
The finale begins at a markedly slower tempo and immediately changes the atmosphere of the work. Its opening sonorities are spacious and sustained, before a faster episode introduces renewed movement. The finale therefore does not simply provide a triumphant conclusion to the Symphony. Instead, it draws together the opposing tendencies that have characterised the work: stillness and movement, individual voices and collective sonority, rhythmic insistence and sustained reflection. The result is a Symphony whose unity lies less in the repetition of a single theme than in the persistent transformation of its musical materials.
Symphony 26 ‘Ganges’ Opus 301
Symphony No. 26, Ganges, was inspired by Dafydd Bullock's first extended visit to India in February 2020 and is the first of three symphonies arising directly from his experiences there. It is dedicated to Harshwardhan Singh Rathore, who introduced the composer to his country, and to Ollie, who was born shortly after Bullock's return to Europe. It was written in Senheim, Germany.
The work is not an attempt to write Indian music. Rather, it is a musical response to experiences which profoundly affected the composer's own imagination, and particularly to the journey along the Ganges from its distant northern source towards Varanasi. The single movement begins in an atmosphere of remoteness and purity, evoking the river far in the north before its long journey through the Indian landscape.
As the symphony progresses, however, the musical world becomes increasingly crowded, fragmented and cumulative. Many of the recurring melodic fragments are derived from Hindu chants which Bullock heard and wrote down during his visit. Rather than being presented as quotations, these remembered fragments are absorbed into the composer's own musical language, where they are repeated, transformed and accumulated. Sitar, tabla and santoor also enter the orchestral texture, sometimes with improvisatory freedom, contributing further layers to an increasingly complex sound-world.
The destination of the journey is Varanasi, whose overwhelming coexistence of life and death, devotion and indifference, compassion and brutality left a particularly powerful impression. Here the music becomes progressively more oppressive, reflecting the sensory and emotional intensity of the city as Bullock experienced it. The final stages of the symphony draw upon a single day in Varanasi, beginning with the cremation of bodies in the morning and moving towards the hypnotic religious ceremonies of the evening.
Throughout the work, the Ganges provides a sense of continuity. Musical ideas emerge, overlap and disappear, while the larger journey continues. The symphony does not seek to resolve the contradictions of the experience. Instead, it allows them to coexist, accumulating until the listener is drawn into the same extraordinary multiplicity that inspired the work.
Ganges is therefore not a portrait of India seen from a distance, but the musical memory of a journey through a country which altered the composer's perception of sound, place and human experience.
Symphony 27 ‘For New Life’ Opus 305
Symphony No. 27, For New Life, was written in Senheim, Germany, during the nine months preceding the birth of the composer's granddaughter, Evelyn, and is dedicated to her as a musical “Welcome to the World”.
The work grew directly from the ultra-sound recordings made during the pregnancy. At each stage, Dafydd Bullock listened to Evelyn's heartbeat and used its changing speed and rhythmic character as a starting point for the music. The resulting symphony consists of six cumulative movements, following the gradual development of a new life from its first audible presence to the increasingly powerful anticipation of birth.
The opening movement begins with the rapid, tapping pulse heard at the first scan at six weeks, while the second responds to the unpredictable rhythmic energy and movement apparent at thirteen weeks. The third movement turns inward, becoming a calm meditation on the invisible construction of life itself, while the fourth celebrates its growing power and energy at sixteen weeks. At twenty weeks comes the fifth, Serenissima, an almost celestial movement inspired by the sight of Evelyn's head at rest. The final movement gathers the preceding experience into a larger and increasingly dramatic symphonic conclusion.
Yet Evelyn is not the only presence within the work. Material associated with her mother is derived from a lullaby which Bullock wrote on the night of her own birth and which returns throughout the symphony, creating a direct musical connection between two generations. Evelyn’s father, meanwhile, is represented through elements of Welsh musical tradition, including Calon Lân, Hyfrydol and Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau. The symphony is therefore cumulative in more than one sense. As Evelyn develops, the music develops with her, but it also gathers together memories, family relationships and musical inheritances. A lullaby written for a newborn daughter returns to welcome that daughter's child; Welsh hymns and national song acknowledge the cultural inheritance of Evelyn's father; earlier music is given a new meaning within a new family context.
For New Life is ultimately a symphony of anticipation. It was written for someone who could already be heard and increasingly seen, but whom the composer had not yet met. Before Evelyn entered the world, the music was already waiting for her.
Symphony 28 ‘Y Fflam - The Flame’ Opus 313
Symphony No. 28, Y Fflam – The Flame, composed in Senheim, Germany in May 2021, is a compact three-movement work for string orchestra in which the idea of flame becomes a source of musical transformation. Rather than offering a descriptive portrait of fire, the symphony explores different states of energy: flickering movement, glowing stillness, gathering force and elemental release.
The opening movement begins with small, active figures which pass restlessly through the string orchestra, changing register, density and character as they develop. The music grows through continual transformation rather than conventional repetition, its material spreading through the ensemble and repeatedly changing shape, like flame itself.
The central Adagietto offers a complete contrast. Here the restless activity of the opening is transformed into sustained, luminous sound. Long melodic lines emerge from broad string sonorities, creating a sense of inwardness and concentrated warmth. The music is slow and contemplative, but beneath its stillness lies an intense inner life.
The finale releases the accumulated energy of the preceding movements. Its more physical rhythmic momentum and increasing orchestral weight bring together the restless motion of the first movement and the sustained power of the second. The string orchestra expands into a force of considerable dramatic intensity before the symphony finally reaches a state of broad, elemental stillness. It opens tragically and despite increased forward motion remains so. Towards the end a short major passage, taken from an earlier work (the symphonic poem ‘Y Chwarel - The Quarry’) passes in and out of the ongoing activity, offering moments of lightness and consolation. The music winds down to a close, but still leaving an unresolved feeling.
Y Fflam is therefore not simply a musical depiction of fire. Its three movements trace a process in which energy continually changes its form. The flame flickers, glows, gathers strength and finally becomes something larger than itself: an elemental symbol of movement, transformation and enduring power.
Symphony 29 ‘Salzburg’ Opus 317
There are certain numbers in music which carry their own associations, and Symphony No. 29 is inevitably one of them. Mozart's Symphony No. 29 in A major is one of his most beloved and distinctive symphonic works, and so Dafydd Bullock's own Symphony No. 29 could, as he puts it, “only be in A major” and perhaps should inevitably bear the title Salzburg. It was written in Hinterthal, Austria, in August 2021.
The first movement begins with unmistakable musical memories of Mozart's Symphony No. 29. Fragments of its opening movement appear almost as quotations, though never quite becoming literal reproductions. Mozart is therefore not simply an influence or distant historical presence, but the point from which Bullock's own symphonic journey begins. Familiar gestures are heard through a different musical imagination, suggesting a conversation with the earlier symphony rather than an attempt to recreate it.
From this fresh and light-hearted beginning, however, the musical world gradually changes. The classical proportions and elegance of the opening begin to expand into something broader and increasingly Romantic. The second movement opens out into a more spacious world, while the energetic third movement brings a growing physicality and elemental force. By the finale, the landscape itself seems to have transformed the music.
For Bullock, Salzburg is inseparable from the extraordinary mountains surrounding it, and these increasingly dictate the symphony's widening scale and emotional character. The deliberate evocations of Bruckner which emerge during the later stages of the work acknowledge another great Austrian musical presence. Mozart provides the point of departure, but the symphony eventually enters a world of breadth, resonance and elemental grandeur closer to Bruckner's imagination.
The four movements of Salzburg therefore trace a journey through both landscape and musical history. The symphony begins by walking briefly beside Mozart, then gradually moves away from the classical world into increasingly Romantic and expansive territory. Mozart opens the journey; the Austrian mountains determine where it will go.
Symphony 30 ‘The Darkling Light’ Opus 324
Written in Senheim, Germany, at the end of December 2021, Symphony No. 30, The Darkling Light, is a short but intense single-movement work for string orchestra. It reflects the increasingly dark mood of a world facing several simultaneous crises: the continuing health emergency, the growing reality of climate change and the gathering threat of war between Russia and Ukraine. The work does not attempt to describe these events individually. Instead, it responds to the atmosphere they created: uncertainty, isolation, tension and the sense of a future becoming increasingly difficult to imagine.
The symphony begins with a single exposed voice. Gradually, the other instruments enter, forming connections and temporary moments of collective strength before the texture repeatedly fragments and withdraws. Activity gathers, tension increases and the string orchestra acquires considerable intensity, yet the music resists any simple progression towards triumph or catastrophe.
The title contains the central paradox of the work. The light is present, but it is threatened and darkening; the darkness itself is never absolute. After the work's periods of tension and accumulation, the music finally withdraws into an extraordinary fragility.
There is no victory at the end of The Darkling Light, but neither is there complete extinction. What remains is something quieter and more uncertain: a sense of endurance.
Symphony 31 ‘Wasserfall’ Opus 331
Composed in Senheim, Germany in 2022 and inspired by a painting by Roswitha Foch in Maria Alm, Symphony No. 31, Wasserfall is a symphonic response not simply to the appearance of a waterfall, but to its movement, energy and constantly changing character.
The work unfolds as a single continuous span in which musical ideas seem less like conventional themes than forces set into motion. From the opening stillness, fragments gradually gather momentum until the orchestra is swept into increasingly powerful currents of rapid movement. Figures pass between strings and wind, accumulate into larger masses, break apart and re-form, creating a musical landscape in perpetual transformation.
Yet Wasserfall is far from an uninterrupted torrent. Periods of intense activity are balanced by moments of suspension, broad melodic writing and unexpected spaces of calm. The music repeatedly seems to arrive at a point of release, only to discover a new source of energy and begin again in a different form.
The waterfall therefore becomes both image and structural principle. Like flowing water, the music is continuous without remaining static: its surface may change from turbulence to stillness, from weight to transparency, but beneath these transformations lies an unbroken sense of motion.
In Wasserfall, the orchestra does not merely describe a natural phenomenon. It becomes the phenomenon itself.
Symphony 32 ‘Life!’ Opus 333
Life! is another celebration of new life, written before the birth of the composer's second granddaughter, Norah. Like Symphony No. 27, For a New Life, the work follows the course of the pregnancy through music, but this time the six movements are based upon the precise and changing rhythms of the baby's heartbeat as heard and recorded during successive scans.
Each movement therefore possesses its own tempo and rhythmic character, derived from a particular moment in the developing child's life. From the first urgent heartbeat detected at seven weeks, through increasing activity, reflection, gratitude and anticipation, the symphony follows the growing awareness of a new person who is present, increasingly real, yet still unknown.
The work is also a musical gathering of the family into which Norah is about to arrive. Themes associated with her mother include the lullaby written by the composer shortly after his daugter's birth in Luxembourg in 1986. Her father is represented by elements of Hen Wlad fy Nhadau and Calon Lân, while Norah's older sister Evelyn appears through her own musical material and a variation of Evelyn went to the sea sea sea. Other memories and identities enter the symphony, including a chorale outline of Nun danket alle Gott, an Austrian sunlight theme and one further theme whose identity remains the composer's secret.
These ideas are continually quoted, transformed, combined and re-combined. The symphony therefore brings together different periods, places and generations: Luxembourg in 1986, Wales, Austria, the birth of Evelyn and the approaching arrival of Norah.
The fifth movement, Serenissima II, returns to an image which had inspired a corresponding movement in For a New Life: the sight, in an ultrasound scan, of the baby's head in repose. Long string phrases and a cello counter-melody respond to the exquisite curve of Norah's head, while musical memories from elsewhere in the family world briefly enter the texture.
The final movement, significantly entitled Finale and Beginning, gathers the symphony's various themes into an increasingly excited and energetic conclusion. The heartbeat accelerates, family themes combine, fragments become fughettas and the music becomes almost breathless with anticipation.
Then, after the accumulated activity has subsided, the solemn music heard earlier in the symphony returns. As the work comes quietly to its close, flute and clarinet introduce the outline of a new idea, shaped to the rhythm of the name Norah ***.
After all the music of the family who are waiting for her, the final gesture belongs to the one person who has not yet arrived.
Written in Senheim Germany in 2022 and 2023, this is her symphony.
Symphony 33 ‘The Temple’ Opus 334
"Inspired by a visit to the now disused Kailashnatha Temple at Kanchipuram, and several others, and dedicated 'to those who were there'. I wondered what might linger in the air after countless centuries of worship and activity. This one-movement symphony has three main sections, the first is marked 'Spirits and Memories enter the long-empty Temple' the second 'SHIVA' and finally 'Spirits and Memories leave the again-empty Temple'. I have used original melodic and rhythmic material noted down on the day.
The end is the beginning is the end. The final section reverses and inverts the music of the first, including the bird calls. So there is no life, no death, no past, no future, no up, no down, no hot, no cold, no forwards, no backwards, no optimism, no pessimism. All is one. We are all one. Everything in this universe, and maybe as well in parallel or alternative universes, is ONE. To recognise the Divine is to recognise this space where there are no contradictions."
The Temple is a one-movement symphony concerned with memory, presence and the possibility that distinctions which appear fundamental to human experience may ultimately be illusory.
The work is in three main sections. The first, Spirits and Memories enter the long-empty Temple, draws upon original melodic and rhythmic material noted down during the visit. Particularly important are Hindu chants which were being sung outside the disused temple itself and which the composer wrote down as he heard them. Bird calls and other sounds remembered from the place also become part of the musical world. Although the temple itself was empty, the sounds of continuing worship outside it created a powerful sense in which past and present, absence and presence, seemed to exist simultaneously.
The central section, SHIVA, forms the philosophical centre of the symphony. During the same journey, the composer acquired an unusual statue of Shiva. Instead of standing upright in the conventional manner, Shiva is balanced on his hands, with his legs in the air. The image is both deeply meaningful and, in another sense, entirely meaningless. If there is no absolute up or down, why should Shiva not ‘stand’ in this way?
This idea is reflected in the musical construction of the work. The final section, Spirits and Memories leave the again-empty Temple, returns to the material of the opening, but it is not a conventional recapitulation. The music is reversed and inverted, including the bird calls themselves. Retrograde and inverted passages become musical expressions of the symphony's larger idea: that forwards and backwards, up and down, beginning and ending may be different manifestations of the same underlying reality.
The end is the beginning is the end.
The symphony ultimately explores the possibility that there is no absolute separation between life and death, past and future, presence and absence, optimism and pessimism. Everything belongs to one reality.
All is one.
Written in India, England, and Senheim, Germany, in February - March 2023
Symphony 34 ’Sussex’ Opus 341
Sussex is a symphony inspired by landscape, but its four movements are not intended as musical pictures. Rather, each draws its character from a different aspect of the natural world and from the changing perspective it creates. The symphony moves from the open expanses of the countryside to the physical energy of a storm, from the transformed world of moonlight to the immense stillness of the night sky. Its movements are entitled From the Fields, From the Storm, From the Moon and From the Night and the Stars. The repeated word “from” is significant. The music does not attempt simply to describe these things. It grows out of them.
The first movement unfolds in flowing melodic lines which gradually expand from an intimate string texture into a broader orchestral landscape. From the Storm brings greater energy and turbulence, while the third movement creates a more distant and spacious world in which familiar musical gestures seem transformed by moonlight.
In the finale, the perspective widens still further. The landscape of the earlier movements remains present, but it is now placed beneath the vastness of the night and the stars. Broad orchestral sonorities coexist with continuing movement, suggesting both the immense stillness of the sky and the restless life of the world below.
Sussex is therefore a journey not through different places, but through different ways of seeing the same place. Fields, weather, moonlight and starlight become sources from which the music grows, gradually enlarging the listener's perspective from the immediate landscape to the seemingly limitless space above it.
Written in Chiddingly, Sussex, England during a two week stay in August, 2023 and dedicated to Susan Bullock and Richard Berkeley Steele.
Symphony 35 'Swarna Nagari - The Golden City' Opus 343
Inspired by a brief visit to the colossal model city - or perhaps model universe - at the Jain Museum in Ajmer, India in November, 2023, Swarna Nagari – The Golden City is a one-movement symphony concerned with the human struggle to rise above the repetitive activity and apparent meaninglessness of collective existence. The Golden City may be understood in many ways: as a heavenly or celestial realm, a Promised Land, Nirvana, enlightenment or redemption. Yet it is not presented as a destination which can easily be reached. It may occasionally be perceived or glimpsed, but the symphony is concerned above all with the striving towards it.
The work begins in a restless world of constant movement. Musical patterns repeat, overlap and proliferate, creating a sense of activity which is energetic and persistent but initially without clear purpose or direction. From this maelstrom, however, attempts gradually emerge to create something more individual, more conscious and more enduring. Larger musical structures rise above the surrounding activity, establishing moments of clarity, light and order before being challenged once again by the forces from which they have emerged.
The image behind the symphony is therefore not simply that of a Golden City waiting to receive those who arrive there. It is also the image of human beings struggling to create structures of meaning within the conditions of their own existence. The music repeatedly reaches upwards, attempting to establish what might be described as small towers of hope above the surrounding activity. These structures are never entirely secure and complete connection remains elusive, but the act of striving itself acquires meaning.
The question underlying the work is deliberately provocative: might enlightenment or redemption itself be understood as a kind of Darwinian struggle? Not as a reward granted from above, but as something which has to emerge, survive and continually reassert itself against the forces of ignorance, repetition and unconscious collective existence.
Swarna Nagari does not offer an easy vision of transcendence. Its affirmation lies instead in the continuing human attempt to rise, to create, to become conscious and, against considerable odds, to connect.
Symphony 36 Opus 344
Symphony No. 36 is written for solo violin and string orchestra. Written in Senheim, Germany at the end of December, 2023 - ‘as the year fades away,’ it unfolds as a single, continuous movement. After the expansive orchestral and philosophical worlds of the preceding Indian symphonies, this work turns towards a more concentrated and inward form of expression, creating a musical journey from elegiac reflection through movement, intensity and fragmentation before returning to a profoundly altered stillness.
The symphony begins from within the string orchestra itself, with the lower and middle voices establishing a grave, singing world from which the solo violin gradually emerges. What follows is not a sequence of sharply contrasted themes or episodes, but a continuous process of transformation. The original melodic and rhythmic material is repeatedly reshaped, becoming increasingly animated, at times almost restless, before expanding into passages of broad and intense collective sonority.
Throughout the work there is a changing relationship between the individual and the ensemble. The solo violin is sometimes a leading voice, sometimes a distant presence and sometimes almost absorbed back into the larger body of strings. The orchestra itself moves between intimacy and monumentality, between energetic activity and moments of extraordinary openness and space.
After reaching its most substantial and concentrated sonorities, the music gradually begins to fragment and withdraw. Earlier material reappears, but never simply as a repetition of what has already been heard. It has been changed by the experience through which the symphony has passed. The final return to quietness is therefore not a return to the beginning, but an arrival at a stillness which has been earned.
The symphony closes with the solo violin and string orchestra gradually receding into an almost whispered silence, leaving the sense that the musical journey continues beyond the final sound.
Symphony 37 'The Return' Op. 350
Symphony No. 37, The Return, is a four-movement work whose titles suggest a journey through four contrasting states: The Journey, Distractions, The Stars and The Return. The sequence may invite many interpretations. It is not intended as autobiography or as a literal narrative, but rather offers a series of images through which the listener may find a personal path through the music.
The first movement, The Journey, begins from a relatively restrained musical gesture and gradually expands into a broader and more varied orchestral landscape. Movement, direction and changing terrain become central elements of its character, as musical ideas are transformed through contrasting tempi, metres and orchestral colours. The journey does not proceed in a straight line, and its destination remains deliberately undefined.
Distractions introduces a more volatile and energetic world. Rapid changes of direction, shifting rhythms and constantly changing orchestral textures create a sense of movement continually diverted by new impulses. The title may suggest temptation, interruption, pleasure, excitement or simply the innumerable experiences which can draw any journey away from its original course.
The third movement, The Stars, offers a striking contrast. Time seems to expand, and the music moves into a broader, more spacious world of sustained sonorities and long perspectives. After the activity of the preceding movements, this music seems to invite contemplation, distance and a change of scale.
In the finale, The Return, the journey turns once again towards its point of origin. Yet a return cannot simply restore the original state. Whatever interpretation the listener places upon the work, the intervening experiences have changed the perspective from which the return is made. Musical ideas and gestures may recall earlier parts of the symphony, but they now carry the memory of the journey, its distractions and the vast stillness of the stars.
The symphony ultimately leaves open the question of what, precisely, it means to return. One may return to a place, a person, an idea, a state of mind, or perhaps to oneself. The return may be joyful, uncertain, peaceful or simply inevitable. The music does not impose an answer, but suggests that the meaning of any return depends upon the journey which has preceded it.
Senheim, Germany, April 2024
Symphony 38 'Fjorden - The Fjord' Opus 356
Begun on board the Havila Castor in October 2024 during an epic journey along the Norwegian coast from Bergen to Kirkenes and back, and completed in Germany in early November, Symphony No. 38, Fjorden, is a one-movement work inspired by days and nights spent travelling through some of the most extraordinary surroundings imaginable.
The symphony is not intended as a description of any particular fjord. Rather, it creates a composite, imagined fjord containing impressions, memories, sounds and experiences gathered during the journey. Its underlying formal idea is simple: like the ship itself, the music enters the fjord, experiences what is found there, and eventually leaves again.
Within this musical landscape are several distinct elements. Norwegian folk music appears in the form of Bruremarsj fra Sørfold, a wedding melody heard at a midnight concert in Tromsø, alongside an almost folk-song invented by the composer. There are occasional harmonic flavours and shadows of Grieg, not as quotation or imitation but as part of the musical atmosphere of the Norwegian journey. The harp evokes the magical and energising experience of the Northern Lights, while the changing sea provides a continuing and unpredictable presence: at times calm and almost motionless, at others decidedly more animated, with a swell to say the least.
The journey into and out of the fjord provides more than a simple programme. What is encountered within it becomes part of the music's larger continuity. Landscape, weather, sea, memory, folk music, invention, human presence and the immense spaces of the Norwegian coast all enter the same musical world.
In the end, the ship leaves the fjord, and the music leaves with it. Yet what has been experienced remains. The fjord is both entered and left; the journey begins and ends; sound emerges from silence and returns to it. Perhaps, from another perspective, these apparent opposites are not opposites at all, but simply different moments within the same continuous experience.
Fjorden was composed in Senheim, Germany, from sketches made in Norway in October and November 2024.
Symphony 39 'Dresden' Opus 359
Written immediately after the composer's first visit to Dresden in April and May 2025, Symphony No. 39 is a three-movement work inspired by the history, destruction and reconstruction of the city, but also by a wider sense of grief and shame at the continuing destruction of human lives and cities.
The first movement begins in a world of deep sadness and unease. Although Dresden is the immediate point of departure, the music is not concerned with history as something safely confined to the past. The destruction of one city inevitably suggests all the others which have suffered before and since. The movement gradually develops in intensity, but its underlying emotional character remains one of grief, apprehension and a sense of humanity's continuing failure to escape its own destructive impulses.
The short second movement is violent and concentrated. It evokes the horror of the firestorm and the destruction of Dresden, not as a spectacle but as an overwhelming rupture. The music is compressed, brutal and unstable, creating a moment from which the symphony cannot simply return to its previous state.
The third movement begins after the catastrophe, in shock and dislocation. From this fractured landscape emerge brief evocations of Baroque and Classical musical styles, though never quite correctly. These passages reflect the reconstruction of Dresden's historic centre and the extraordinary reappearance of architectural beauty. Yet the past cannot simply be restored. The historical musical languages are recognisable but altered, and beneath them remains a continuing sense of terror and loss.
In the final section, material from the first movement returns in further development. The symphony does not end in triumph or conventional consolation. Reconstruction, survival and beauty are present, but they cannot erase what has happened. The final emotion is one of profound sadness.
Symphony No. 39 is therefore both a response to Dresden and a wider meditation upon destruction, memory and the human capacity simultaneously to create, destroy and rebuild.
Senheim, Germany, May 2025
Symphony 40 'For Unto Us' Opus 364
Written following the news of the composer’s second daughter’s pregnancy in 2025 and completed after the birth in 2026, Symphony No. 40, For Unto Us, is a five-movement celebration of the arrival of a new member of the family. The work is dedicated to the baby and his parents, and follows the journey from the first excitement of the news, through pregnancy and waiting, to the eventual announcement of the baby's name.
The first movement, News, begins in a state of excitement. Trembling chromatic figures rise through the strings, alternating with more lyrical chordal passages, until a timpani announcement introduces a new and more stable musical world. Broad diatonic brass chords prepare two related announcements: a spacious trumpet theme, which will return at the very end of the symphony, and a brief quotation from New York, New York - “Start spreadin' the news” - intended for the baby’s father. Excitement and lyricism then return to bring the movement to its close.
Mother and Child moves into an entirely different world. Extremely gentle muted strings present an adaptation of music originally written for the mother shortly after her own birth and later incorporated into Nocturne No. 8, Op. 39. Against and between this music comes another presence: the actual speed and precise rhythm of the baby’s heartbeat, as recorded during one of the scans and heard here on the side drum. The movement therefore brings together mother and unborn child in the most direct possible musical way: the mother’s music from the beginning of her life and the baby’s physical pulse before his.
The third movement, Building Blocks, is concerned with energy, growth and the remorselessly rapid expansion of cells. Rising chromatic figures develop at different speeds against the continuing rhythm of the baby’s heartbeat. The score identifies this movement as Building Blocks, and its musical construction reflects the title: small elements expand, accumulate and combine into increasingly complex structures. At rehearsal A, however, a more lyrical world appears, including a theme in the upper strings which, although its identity was not yet known to the composer, eventually proves to be the baby’s name theme. The person for whom the symphony is being written is already present in the music before his name has been announced.
In the fourth movement, Waiting, the initial excitement gives way to the long period of anticipation. A languorous, slow melody is heard first in the cello and later in the horns, accompanied by a gentle syncopated background. The baby’s theme, now recognised as such, becomes increasingly present, while a transformed version of his mother’s earlier music returns.
The final movement, Arrival, brings together the principal ideas of the symphony. Tentative strings are answered by the baby’s motif, while references to the heartbeat return, changing in pace as the music becomes increasingly active. Contrapuntal passages develop the accumulated material, and the first four notes of his mother’s theme acquire dramatic prominence. The stable announcement music from the first movement returns, followed by further appearances of the mother’s own music and an increasingly urgent heartbeat. Eventually the broad trumpet announcement theme, prepared so long before, returns.
Then, at last, the mystery is resolved. At rehearsal M—appropriately, perhaps, for Mother—the baby's name is announced: Jordi. A brief quotation from Handel's Messiah, For Unto Us a Son Is Given, provides the final act of welcome. The music then subsides quietly, perhaps, as the composer suggests, exhausted.
Symphony 41 'Mare Nostrum’ Opus 371
Written six weeks after the composer's return from Nerja in Andalusia, where February 2026 was spent largely on a sunny terrace overlooking the Mediterranean, Symphony No. 41, Mare Nostrum—the Roman name for the Mediterranean, meaning “Our Sea”—is a four-movement evocation of a place which, for one memorable month, seemed very much to become exactly that. The symphony is dedicated to two close friends, Antonia and Enrique, with whom so much of that time was shared.
The first movement, Morning Waves, evokes the steady movement of the sea towards the land. Its music unfolds with patience and continuity, the strings creating the impression not of dramatic waves or violent weather but of the regular, hypnotic swell of the Mediterranean on a calm morning. The movement establishes the sea as a permanent presence: endlessly changing, yet always recognisably itself.
Morning Birds, the second movement, provides an immediate contrast. The calm continuity of the waves gives way to the restless, hysterical and seemingly chaotic activity of small birds resting on the roof after crossing from Africa before continuing northwards. Rapid, darting figures pass through the strings with an energy that is at once excited, confused and exuberantly alive. The movement is less concerned with the shape of flight than with its sheer nervous intensity.
In the third movement, Distant Storm, the atmosphere darkens. The idyll is temporarily overshadowed by dark skies and hints of thunder somewhere beyond the immediate horizon, but the storm never destroys the underlying tranquillity. Instead, the temporary darkness seems almost to intensify the beauty of the surrounding landscape. Towards the end, the movement is touched by a quotation from the Welsh folksong Ar Lan y Môr—“By the Seashore”—together with a light suggestion of almost flamenco colour. Wales and Andalusia briefly meet beside the Mediterranean.
The final movement, Setting Sun, brings the symphony towards evening. The activity of the day gradually dissolves as the daily spectacle begins. The restless birds have gone, the distant storm has passed and the movement turns increasingly towards breadth, colour and stillness. The strings finally return to the larger, slower rhythms of the sea, as though the entire day is being absorbed once more into the continuing presence of Mare Nostrum.
Symphony No. 41 is a celebration of place, friendship and memory. It does not attempt to describe Nerja literally, but rather to recreate the sensations of living for a time beside the Mediterranean: waking to its movement, watching the restless life around it, seeing the weather change and finally watching the day dissolve into sunset.