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There is no charge for downloading this. - It sounds best with headphones. Usual line-up for symphony orchestra including piccolo, 4 trumpets, and 3 percussion players. The 2nd oboe plays cor anglais (English Horn). The bass trombone can be played by tuba if desired.
Part one - INFANCY
To understand this, you may prefer to download the score to see the bar numbers (written to the left of bars).
Bars 1-14 - heavily pregnant woman. Bars 15 - 16 (the loudest chord) - the birth. Bars 17 -18 heart beats.
Bars 19 - 32 - initial impressions of the outside world by the baby. Bars 33 - 48 - things beginning to make more sense with some response (timpani beats).
Bars 49 - 55 passage of time. Bars 56-57 baby cries (had a lot of problems with this). Bars 58 - 61 - mother comforts the baby and the crying eases.
Bars 62 - 65, the first steps. Bar 66 - 67 - baby falls. Bars 68 - 71 - baby starts to walk again. Bars 72-73 baby falls again.
Bars 74 - 77 baby walks again (third time lucky) and doesn't fall so builds up confidence. Bars 78 - 80 - successful walking.
Bars 81 - 82 - baby walks faster but it tires him/her out, so bars 83 -85 baby falls asleep. Bars 86 -88 sweet dreams.
Incidentally, the trombone bits in the walking stages suggest that toilet training has not begun yet, to put it delicately! I don't believe in pretentiousness, even if this is close to classical music.
Part two - CHILDHOOD
You may like to download the score to make sense of the following.
It starts off with just clarinet (although I've used 2 staggered clarinets to enable the players to breathe). The clarinet represents the young child, playing by him/herself until joined gradually by others. At letter E everyone is having fun playing together, although there is no structure to what they are doing. Playing together is very important in learning social skills. At letter F this changes when the child acts as the leader (for 2 bars) and then everyone joins in for the next 2 bars - this is then repeated (call and answer sort of thing.) At letter G, it is more organised like a sport's match. At letter H the brass represents authority, whether it is a school master or parents and they take charge for a while. At I, other children go away leaving the child alone at letter I from bar 3 onwards.
Part three - TEENAGE
Teenagers and pop music seem to go together, so this is my pathetic attempt to write a pop tune (for symphony orchestra, so no electric guitar, organ and so on, but I have added a drum kit to the percussion session and substituted a bass guitar for the double basses). Anyway, apart from pop music, teenagers face puberty, and dating (and often being rejected), rebellion against parents, horrible school exams, and an uncertain future. The prevalence of mobile phones (cell phones) and social media is also highly influential for teenagers (and others), which can have a positive and negative effect. I've tried to reproduce these things in the music. All I can say is that I am very glad I am not going through teenage years again. Incidentally, the polytonal (or rather bitonal) bit at the end is deliberate and not a typo error and represents the conflict between happy times and the anguish caused by so many distressing things - see above.
Part four - ELEGY
This piece refers to the premature death of young people. It combines sadness as well as a celebration of their lives and the happiness which they brought to other people. I was thinking in particular of children and young people who have been killed in Israel. The IDF has no scruples about killing children or even babies and yet governments keep sending arms to Israel. Words alone cannot describe the utter disgust I feel about the genocide and complicity of so many countries!
Coming up soon - "Part five - The 20s" will follow this.
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