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Small Ensemble
2021
Alto Flute
Bass Clarinet
Cello
Mezzo-soprano
Viola
Violin
- Program Notes
- On the side of Bennachie, an overgrown hill in my hometown of Northern Aberdeenshire, there is an old standing-stone engraved with pictic and catholic imagery from the 8th Century. These engravings that cover both faces are miraculously well preserved, despite the standard weather of the Scottish coast. They contain fragments of the surrounding nature, culture, and a pictic folk tale that accompanies the stone’s origin. According to the legend, a young maiden, of no particular identification other than ‘daughter to a Laird’ (Lord) lived alone on the side of Bennachie and spent her time baking a local peasant dish called a ‘bannock’. One day a man enters her doorway unannounced and offers a wager: that he can pave a road to the top of the mountain before she can bake him a bannock. Shortly after accepting this offer, he returns victorious, revealing himself as the Devil, and chases her through the woods. When he catches up with the maiden and places his hand on her shoulder, she is instantly turned to the stone that remains on that mountain, hence the title, Maiden Stone. I grew up not twenty minutes away from this public artefact and was always fascinated by its structure, its history, and its fantastical tale. It is one that remains unrecognised yet seemingly unfinished, undeveloped. As I’ve returned to the story throughout my childhood, several questions began to emerge concerning the elements of this stone and its story: Who is this Maiden? What is her femininity? Who is this Devil? What do these images mean? And what does this stone mean for the history of the pictic people? To respond to these questions, I wrote four poems that draw from the illustrations on the East face of the stone (the one containing four detailed illustrations of rare pictic imagery) and set them to music by focusing on the Maiden as a symbol of grieving. In this regard, the stone is totemic and its engravings are epitaphic. ‘She’ is emblematic not only of the hill and its nature, but of the entire pictic culture and its decay. What I present in this work is my authentic relation to the stone, one concerning the question of language, and one that I hope will bring forth the history of my home and inspire further inquiry into the understanding of this remarkable stone and all that encompasses it.
- Recording Notes
- Recorded at the National Sawdust in 2021 as part of BMP: Next Gen
- Performer Credits
- Contemporaneous