Wetlands

Wetlands, first published in 2021, is a new composition of 5 short works written for recorder duet (Tr-T).

1. Egret in the Shallows

2.Wood Duck on the Water

3. Purple Swamphen in the Reeds

4. Coot on the Nest

5. Cormorant Diving in the Depths

REVIEW

The Recorder Magazine Spring 2024

Wetlands is a set of five short pieces, ideal material for any 'twitchers' amongst the readership! Egret features wide leaps with several short semiquaver passages, tenors should brush up on your F sharp major scale and arpeggio! Wood Duck is more scalic in construction and has an almost percussive couple of bars of repeated staccato semiquavers for the alto player; a good opportunity to practice your double tonguing at a conservative tempo. The Purple Swamphen, aka Sultana Bird, is similar in size and shape to a coot. This movement has a waltz feel at a free flowing tempo. I'm sure players will be grateful to Lance Eccles for highlighting the hemiola across bars 57 and 58., which otherwise might have been easily missed. Coot, my personal favourite, has some unusual rhythms and several flutter-tongued notes for both players; a commonly used extended technique when writing bird-themed music. Cormorant contains descending motives to represent the bird diving for food. No semiquavers here, so the 120bpm indication shouldn't cause too much panic. Harmonically all the pieces stray quite far from their original keys and have some unexpected twists and turns, though always finding their way home by the end. I certainly found the unpredictability of the harmony engaging. I really enjoyed playing these characterful pieces through. Any number, and in any order, would make an excellent concert filling item.

Adam J. Dopadlik 

_Score 11 pp. Parts 11 pp._