Programme Notes – Magnification x

This short setting of a poem by the Tasmanian poet Sarah Day was written as a 70th birthday tribute to the composer Anthony Gilbert for his 70th birthday in 2004. The quirky instrumentation of soprano solo, sopranino recorder, cello and harpsichord is the most bizarre I have ever attempted, and I hope helps towards conveying a feeling of minute detail and tropical humidity so vividly portrayed in the poem. Incidentally the title should read ‘Magnification times’ as opposed to the twenty fourth letter of the alphabet!