Description

No Man’s Land’ for double bass and piano was composed to commemorate the centenary of the start of the First World War and in …memory of David’s grandfathers, both of whom fought in the conflict. The simple chordal accompaniment is reminiscent of a repeated tolling bell against which the solo line plays a poignant melodic line of yearning loss. A hint of gunfire eventually falls away into a repeated two note pattern which gradually fades away into nothingness. “When I was writing the piece I had a picture in my mind of the devastation of No Man’s Land in front of me, in black and white, and the stillness and silence are depicted by the slowly moving chordal accompaniment. The solo double bass is almost an onlooker or observer who comments, with both sorrow and anger, at the sheer waste of human life and the brutality of ‘a war to end all wars’, and still we don’t learn.” This edition includes piano accompaniments for solo and orchestral tunings. ‘No Man’s Land’ was premiered at St Thomas Church (Mamhead, Devon) on 13 June 2014 by David Heyes (double bass) and David Haines (piano) and received its American premiere on Monday 1 December 2014 at Black Mountain Center (Black Mountain, North Carolina, USA) by David B. Teague (double bass) and Kathy Wallace (piano). “No Man’s Land is a brilliant piece.” [Nick Merriam]