Touch

For Piano and Chamber Orchestra

 

·  Touch is my proof, my means to know the world  ·

 

For those who long for the touch of a loved one.

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Touch is my most prized sense, light my most loved, and sound my most expressive, but for all these, without words my life would be diminished. Ideas emerge and flourish only through our words.

As I touch I give something precious of myself. My willingness to meet with. My acceptance of another.

Touch is my fundamental sense. I feel through touch. Much of my sense of body is through touch.

Touch was how I first explored the world. Touch allows me to experience everything between pleasure and pain, and provides a way for me to express my inner world and love.

Touch requires trust. If I sense touch is self-centred I withdraw and the same is true for another.

Touch is vital for my well-being, yet fraught with interpretation.

With nature I touch without restraint.

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I hope this piece brings some solace to those who are unable to touch in times of illness and separation.

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As if loved ones, gentle strings accompany the piano in partnership and support. The instruments represent two very different but complimentary characters. Each allowing the other their space and sound. The dense mid section is more of a happening where many instruments take the stage of life, a little more like being in the world rather than in an intimate setting. Here the strings have a different tone, and the piano is absent. The final section presents the strings and piano once again. The piano sings a more powerful and lyrical line over the strings until they eventually come to rest together.

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The first image below, 'Touchless', shows empty single hospital beds, and 'corner beds' that symbolise those that have in the past been shared. The second, 'Touch', shown in its entirety, presents a community of human forms intermingling.