Saltire Quartet

Cuisle Na B≤chna (2000), Shrub (1973), Mary's Piece (1990), For Charlie (1994), Working Through (1989-1999), Cuttings (1996) - Derek Ball

Derek Ball was born in Donegal but has lived in Scotland for some time. The first, and most recent, work in Sunday's recital looks back to a childhood by the Atlantic, especially to a "disconcerting journey on a little fishing boat in a big swell".

The four instruments of the Saltire string quartet played slow rising and falling lines that mimicked the motion of waves, capturing the apparent formlessness of the ocean's surface that is created, paradoxically, by the tireless reshaping of water. Similar sounds issued from loudspeakers, the combination making one listener feel as queasy as if he were on a boat. Cuisle Na B≤chna (Pulse Of The Sea) lived up to its title.

In that, as in other works, the composer showed less interest in a progress from beginning to end than in a density of superimposed lines. Mary's Piece, made up of overlapping folk-style melodies, became a wall of sound that effectively hid its components behind an ocean-like formlessness.

Working Through used an idea 48 times, each occurrence varying as much , or as little, as consecutive ripples, but giving a feeling of a succession of equal densities, like Cuisle Na B≤chna without its wave shapes.

Shrub, the earliest work, was thronged with ideas, some of which were reworked in Cuttings without adding much to their original statement. Whether playing around with the chord of C major or with a planxty by Carolan, the creation of texture was paramount.

Only in the melodic line for viola in For Charlie did the composer, briefly, succumb to the temptation of writing a tune whose movement was not subsumed in the totality of the parts.