James MacMillan

Piano Concerto No. 2

Originally a ballet score this 30' work is scored with strings and consists of three movements:cumnock fair, a 12-minute fantasy based on dance melodies by the 18th-century Cumnock composer John French. The moods range widely from playful, rustic, archaic, ungainly, dreamy, boisterous, stately, brutal and grotesque to mysterious and unnerving.'shambards' Memories of Burnsian folksong are interrupted by new dance tunes built on fragments from the Mad Scene from Act 3 of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, based on the novel by Walter Scott. 'shamnation'. Low throbbing in the piano becomes a drumbeat to accompany a fast violin reel using three tunes and following a traditional 8-bar structure. The solo piano part emerges as a counterpoint to the Scottish themes after which the music winds its way through many different keys.