Year: 2024

Duration: c. 3 minutes

Instrumentation: string quartet (2vln, vla, vc)

Premiere information: 10 July 2024, Technical University Dublin Conservatory of Music, Dublin

Members of the Ficino Ensemble - quartet

Notes:

“3 photos” was a set of string quartet miniatures written for members of the Ficino Ensemble at the Irish Composition Summer School in Dublin, under the instruction of Nicola LeFanu.

Movements:

I. The Icarian
II. Sweetsmelling
III. Until the blue sea hushed him

“Drawn on by his eagerness for the open sky, he left his guide and soared upwards, till he came too close to the blazing sun, and it softened the sweetsmelling wax that bound his wings together. The wax melted. Icarus moved his bare arms up and down, but without their feathers they had no purchase on the air.”

“Father! he cried, and Father! until the blue sea hushed him, the dark water men call the Icarian now.”