Composed: 1993
Duration: 10 minutes
First Performance: July 1994, at the Pittville Pump Room, Cheltenham, during the Cheltenham Festival, given by the Regency Ensemble, conducted by Diggory Seacome.

‘Triptych’ was written in response to a commission by Diggory Seacome for a performance piece for the Regency Brass Ensemble. The initial stimulus for the work came as the result of the composer’s interest in the poetry of David Gascoyne, and in particular the poem ‘Three Stars of Prophesy’.

‘Triptych’ attempts to mirror the essential message of Gascoyne’s poem which can best be summed up in the following verse:

“Each from the other first and second spin;
Yet to us at this moment they appear so close to one another
That the third seems born to their embracing
Till the outer pair are separate seen again;
And in between the third star balanced shall henceforward burn
Ubiquitous, immaculately clear…”