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Programme Note

Peter Dickinson: Cellars Clough Duo for Two Guitars (1988)

This work was commissioned for Richard Hand and Tom Dupre by the Yorkshire firm, Fisher Firth & Co. Ltd at Cellars Clough, Marsden, Huddersfield, and first performed by this duo at the Wigmore Hall on May 1, 1988. Since I had never written for the guitar before, I borrowed an instrument to work out some textures which got mixed up with the Yorkshire folk-song Scarborough Fair. The result is an extended piece in five sections:

1. A landscape in which Scarborough Fair is heard against bells and environment sounds.
2. An interrupted samba, with a rock version of Scarborough Fair in the middle.
3. An elegy with a long tune - Scarborough Fair as a march in the middle.
4. A funeral march with Scarborough Fair picked out in tremolando.
5. A toccata with glimpses of Scarborough Fair as a waltz and as a rag.

© Peter Dickinson