Night Music

Night Music (2025)

for chamber orchestra

2 fl; 2 ob; 2 cl; 2 bsn
1 hn
strings

Duration: c. 5 minutes

Programme note:

Night Music is a fantasia for orchestra based on the Hindustani classical raga Bageshri. Associated with the deep stillness of night, Bageshri is traditionally performed in the late evening and is said to express the quiet longing of a woman waiting the return of her lover.

A raga is a melodic framework for improvisation in Indian classical music, similar in concept to a mode in Western music, but rich with emotional and temporal associations. Each raga has its own internal logic, prescribed ornamentation, and characteristic phrases, often passed down orally through centuries of musical lineage.

Bageshri is believed to have been first sung by Miyan Tansen, the legendary 16th-century musician and composer in the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar. Tansen, revered as one of the greatest figures in Indian musical history, is credited with shaping the Hindustani tradition and imbuing it with a deep sense of expressive subtlety.

Night Music does not attempt to reproduce the raga in strict classical form, but rather reimagines its spirit and emotional world within a Western orchestral language. The result is a fantasia – a dreamlike meditation on timeless longing, memory, and the silence of the night.

Charlie Barber, August 2025