Jonathan Shaw

     This was a composition also grounded in my interest in the Baroque period. It was written for the final compositional task required for GCSE music (Year 11), which here was asking for a composition to be written in the 20th century popular style (I'm not not sure how the Baroque applies there). The only way I linked it to this requirement was via 32-bar form, repeated three times with two transitions between sections of 6 bars in length. Of course, this was a very minimal link to popular music and this resulted in the low grade of a C, but I fondly remember my teacher commenting that this piece was “as Baroque as you can get”, which I strongly question when I look back, but nevertheless the comment was my highlight of the month (however false it truly was!).

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     It was also recommended by my teacher that I should enter this composition into the BBC Inspire competition, which I went ahead and did during 2012 (this being the first time I had entered a composition competition). Ultimately, the piece was very unfit for the competition and it was obvious there would be no chance, but my younger self kept my hopes up nevertheless. The score I have attached below seems to be far neater than my previous composition, and the reason for this is because I had worked it up for the competition (to me back then, this was as professional a score could get!).

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     You will see the connection between the ‘F melody’ and J.S.Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in D Minor mvt.I, which was a large influence on this piece and a big favourite of mine at the time. I remember spending many extra lunch hours alone in a music practice room equipped with Sibelius and a piano where I would work away on writing this, as well as other pieces from 2012. This piece would have been written some time before July, which would have been the deadline for that academic year.