One of the joys, for me, of writing music is that it’s possible to avoid being specific, to indulge in ambiguity; and to pin this piece down with words seems inappropriate. I can explain that the title derives from the last three words of a poem by Edmund Blunden: but to quote the whole of that poem (a dark and sinister one) would be thoroughly misleading. Besides the title only came, as titles tend to, half way through the composition; it appealed to me for several reasons, one of which was the imagery of a thing seen through glass, unreachable, or overlaid with reflection. But pursuing that analogy is more likely to obscure the piece than elucidate it, and a brief description of the music may be more helpful, even if it goes no further in ‘explaining’ it.
… through the glass was composed between March and September 1994, and lasts around sixteen minutes in a single span of music, mostly slow. The opening is fiercely monodic (a single-line melody), music which recurs in this form only once, after a series of refrain-like episodes, the last of which is a hushed ‘chorale’ for muted strings (more like a distant song than a chorale). A central fast section fleetingly alludes to all the earlier material, before a recapitulation of the refrain leads to an apotheosis of the ‘chorale’ in an extended coda. … through the glass is dedicated to Sally Cavander.
Programme note © Colin Matthews