Instrumentation: Soprano saxophone, bass clarinet and percussion (tubular bells, wood blocks, vibraslap, snare drum)

Duration: 3:00

Premier information: 18 September, 2021. University of Pretoria.

Programmatic information:

Programme notes provided by composer:

18/04/’21: A Reflection is written as a tentative externalisation of the tumultuous emotions experienced by the composer, upon watching so many landmarks of their home be threatened or destroyed by the fire which ravaged Table Mountain on the 18th and 19th of April 2021. The most impactful symbol of this tragedy was, for the composer, the heartrending body of images showing the Jagger Reading Room ablaze. The score expresses the composer’s experiences in a collage, drawing from C. Debussy’s La Cathedral Engloutie and W. A. Mozart’s and enacts them in a three-part narrative.

The opening is articulated as a collection of sporadic outbursts heard against a slower melody and a rising bell motif. This is an evocation of the shifting uncertainty of the early hours of the fire shortly after it had consumed the Rhodes Memorial Restaurant. This slowly becomes the evocation of horror and dismay that characterises the second section, as the fire takes hold of Mostert’s Mill, various parts of the University of Cape Town forcing students into a full evacuation of their residences, and eventually the Jagger Reading Room.

The abrupt finality of the second section’s ending is followed by the muted resignation and
mourning of the third and final section. The slowed melody from the first section returns,
without the frenetic outbursts. All the listener is left with is the certainty of what has
happened. The melody tries to rise to triumph, as the fire is held back from any further
destruction, but ultimately falls back down and limps its way to an unsatisfactory and
inconclusive closing statement.