On Winter Hill
Winter Hill is situated in the North West of England within the West Pennine Moors. It is a popular destination for walkers and on a clear day it offers views across Manchester, Liverpool, Blackpool, the Isle of Man, the Cumbrian Mountains and the Peak District. The hill is well named as there is an ever-present blusteriness even during the summer.
On Winter Hill is an evocative concert item for solo euphonium and concert band which tells the story of a journey, in music, to the summit of the hill.
The work opens with a quiet ostinato on clarinets which is a musical interpretation of the swirling wind dancing around the peak of the summit. The wind is ever present on the hill and so is the ostinato building in volume and intensity as the journey progresses. The solo line uses modal writing and is fashioned as a ‘folksong without words' and gives work a feeling of melancholy and of ‘days gone by'. Perhaps the listener can imagine looking out from the side of the hill across the valley towards the now silent chimneys of industry.
The summit of the hill is finally reached six bars before Figure G, which is the moment you walk into the wall of wind and sound that takes your breath away for a moment, but gives you an immense sense of achievement. The music here should be full and rich giving the soloist a moment to catch their breath. The work closes at the start of the descent from that moment you step off the peak of the hill and you are already back in a different world.
The brass band version of this piece features on the Prima Vista Musikk CD, Definity.