Music of Wood and Strings

Notes

No composer’s note has been located for this work.

The larger-scale Concerto for Groups of Instruments and The Ruin were without a doubt the main focus of Keenan’s ambitions between 1974–79. Three solo works accompany this period. While the Three Pieces for Solo Flute and Two Songs for Unaccompanied Voice are more rooted in Keenan’s earlier style, Music of Wood and Strings offers the same confident and mature voice as those larger-scale works which dominate this timeline.

Disambiguation: Worshipful Company of Musicians’ Silver Medal

Keenan’s first website, created by the composer himself, notes that this work was awarded the Worshipful Company of Musicians’ Silver Medal. This annotation has been carried on through all changes to the website over the years since his death.

Research into this particular Medal tells a slightly different story: The Silver Medal was “established as an annual award to the most distinguished student” at each conservatoire. (See the WCOM’s website for the full history.) Keenan was awarded the Silver Medal in 1977 as the Royal Northern College of Music’s “most distinguished student”.

Further research into the first performance of Music of Wood and Strings shows that the work’s Wigmore Hall premiere was part of a series of three performances promoted by the RNCM. These featured, one would expect, the College’s most up-and-coming students (Ola Rudner is billed as the prizewinner of the 1977 Paginini Competition). Music of Wood and Strings is the only new work in a programme of music by Bach, Brahms, Sibelius and Ravel. An advert in The Musical Times, Vol. 119 No. 1623 (May, 1978) contains the most detail.

It is therefore more likely that this work was born from an opportunity that came as a result of Keenan being the RNCM’s Silver Medal winner.

Performance Materials

• A new edition has been drafted and will be available in due course
• The fair copy is housed at the RNCM Archives, along with numerous copies of this.