across Great Langdale

for solo piano
August 2013; 5’

Premiere: Joseph Houston, ‘Walks with Terry’ concert (York), 9th December 2013.

Written for and dedicated to Terry Holmes on the occasion of his 80th birthday.
Part of the collection Walks with Terry – ten new pieces for solo piano.

Walks with TerryGreat Langdale is a long valley in the Lake District that stretches out from five Langdale Pikes at its northern end, down to the northern edge of Lake Windermere. The fellwalker Alfred Wainwright wrote the landscape,

‘No mountain profile arrests and excites the attention more than that of the Langdale Pikes and no mountain group better illustrates the dramatic appeal of a sudden rising of the vertical from the horizontal; the full height from valley to summit is revealed at a glance in one simple abrupt upsurge to all travellers on the distant shore of Windermere and, more intimately, on the beautiful approach along Great Langdale.’

The piece takes the idea of this vista captured in part from afar. As the traveller continues, he turns the image over in his mind. After a long ascent, he reaches a summit to look out across the vista, and finds a path laid before him.

Walks with Terry also includes pieces by:
David Blake,
William Brooks,
Chang Seok Choi,
Roger Marsh,
Thomas Simaku
Neil Thomas Smith,
John Stringer,
Martin Suckling,
and Ji Sun Yang.