Sinfonia

Sinfonia is the Italian word for symphony. It derives from 'the Greek syn (‘together’) and phone (‘sounding’), and thence from the Latin symphonia'. (Cusick & Larue, 2001). My Sinfonia is a creative response to the transition from voices to instruments that characterised music in England between 1415 and 1611. In this sense, it forms a survey of six very different works by six composers: Anonymous, John Cooke, John Dunstaple, Thomas Tallis, Orlando Gibbons, Christopher Tye Each of my source texts has its own section or movement, like separate chapters or case studies. The six 'source texts' are varied - they range from vernacular song, to polyphonic Latin motet, to viol consort music for domestic use. Sinfonia deliberately uses the vivid resources of today's contemporary classical instruments. But it intersects imaginatively with some of England's earliest music conceived and written down for voices. Through the act of composing Sinfonia, I created six views on the question what happens when a composer consciously references or models the music of the past, and transforms it, in a new composition?