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1 results

  • 21 - The Medium is the Message

  • from Part VI - Contemporary Composer Reflections
  • Edited by Nicholas Jones, Cardiff University
  • Book:
    The Symphony in Britain and Ireland since 1900
    Published online:
    23 July 2026
    Print publication:
    06 August 2026, pp 343-348

  • Summary

    This chapter offers a short journey through Rhian Samuel’s orchestral oeuvre, which includes purely instrumental music such as Tirluniau/Landscapes as well as pieces for voice and orchestra, such as The White Amaryllis. Throughout this journey, the composer’s aim has always been to explore the enormous potential of orchestral sound, starting from the viewpoint of a woodwind player. But at the same time the chapter also outlines her own journey to greater self-confidence as a woman composer, moving from her first large work, Elegy-Symphony – whose form, a four-movement symphony, was encouraged by convention – to Dawnsiau’r Nant (Dances of the Stream) – which is freed of such formal norms. Clytemnestra, arguably Samuel’s best-known work, breaks free of other expectations too, with its sympathetic examination of the motives of the mythical murderess and its inclusion of a powerful bass guitar in the crucial movement, ‘The Deed’.