Crosse, Gordon - Symphony No.3 'Between Despair and Dawn'

Gordon Crosse's Symphony No.3 'Between Despair and Dawn' for Orchestra.

Composer's Note: The subtitle comes from a poem “Exequy’” by Peter Porter which memorialises the death of his first wife. The symphony was written in 2010 while my wife Elizabeth was coping with a terminal cancer and I was in very low spirits. However I tried to make the piece rather more positive (a process I continued in my 4th symphony, which is her true memorial). The dedication to Alison Latham is a thank you for her healing friendship at that time.

There is just one movement which is written as a mosaic of fragments rather than a traditional sonata form. Like many othercomposers of the twentieth century I am fascinated by the “Symphonies of Wind Instruments” by Stravinsky - which in turn was a memorial to Debussy.

The final “Dawn” section features birdsong (of a stylised kind) and inverts the downward inflection of the earlier themes into rising motifs and tonal resolution (into C Major - what else?)