Description
On the Ice by Paul Burnell
1 oboe version composed 1993
2 oboe version composed 2002
This score edition created 2024
First performed 31 July 1997, Paul Burnell (oboe), Patsy Moore (piano), Bretton Hall,Wakefield.
Duration 3.30
1 or 2 Oboes, or other suitable instruments
Piano
Drone instrument - organ, synthesiser etc.
If performed with one oboe, play the Oboe 2 part.
*Note: When first performed the drone was provided by the female members of the rear half of the audience humming f above middle c.
Dynamics may be devised by the performers ad lib.
The quotation from ‘Frankenstein’ given in the programme note below may be incorporated into the performance.
Programme note
'Frankenstein', by Mary Shelley, begins with a series of letters from a Mister R Walton to his sister in London, written whilst on board a ship travelling north from Archangel in Russia. The fourth letter begins:
“So strange an accident has happened to us, that I cannot forbear recording it...
Last Monday, we were nearly surrounded by ice, which closed in the ship on all sides, scarcely leaving her the sea-room in which she floated. Our situation was somewhat dangerous, especially as we were compassed round by a very thick fog. We accordingly lay to, hoping that some change would take place in the atmosphere and weather.
About two o'clock the mist cleared, and we beheld, stretched out in every direction, vast and irregular plains of ice, which seemed to have no end.”