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ELEGY
Solo Viola and String Orchestra

‘Elegy’ is a concert work that can be played as a ‘pure’ concert piece, without mention of the programmatic thread – as such, a late romantic intense outpouring with some occasionally more modern touches also present. It is very much of film ambience, for the special quality of the viola sings (in all registers) almost uninterruptedly in long awe-inspiring phrases that would seem to fit like ‘a glove’ to the big screen.  There are two performance possibilities, for the work is equally persuasive whether performed in orchestral programmes with string orchestra or with a pianist in recital; taking into account that there are rather different sound conceptions in the accompaniment it will be seen that the tone colours of the orchestration are rather different in each version.  The duration is about seven minutes and a half.

The composer has for many years been a staunch defender of animal welfare and animal rights, and this offering is specifically an oration dedicated to the plight of the Spanish bull in the bull-ring (‘la corrida’), which he sees neither as art nor culture. There are no doubts, in Johnstone’s mind, as to the need still (in the twenty-first century) for animal ‘justice’ and to act against unreasonable animal exploitation’:

The music starts … at once the bull demonstrates his physical condition in this solo ‘cadenza’, although it soon becomes obvious that he is in an entirely hostile and unknown atmosphere. Nevertheless … what great expansion of melody he feels. The power of the main theme (the big song) comes to the fore a number of times. The fantasy and ‘rubato’ passages from the viola soloist are indeed of our chief character, the bull himself, trying to re-group his forces to regain his initial strength. The second theme, syncopated and in imitation, is rather more ‘distant’. Without going further into details, the rest of the work describes the unequal fight between man and bull, terminating with the death of the bull. Further more detailed programmatic information is available from the composer upon request.