Summer Beetroot and Rabbit

In a project with pianist, composer and improvisor Sam Bailey, we composed music to be played at the Truscott Arms Restaurant Maida Vale, London. Each piece of music to be specifically in time with the serving of each individual course in a six course meal of stuffed pig’s head, summer beetroot, cured salmon, beef, surprise dessert.

Sam and I were given the opportunity to taste each course prior to the date and before composing the music. Sam composed music for the stuffed pig’s head, beef, and surprise dessert. I composed music for the summer beetroot and rabbit courses writing for a six piece ensemble in each case. The summer beetroot course included three different ways with three different types of beetroot,  garnished with gentleman’s relish, a sweet orange puree, and grated goat’s cheese. When I tasted the summer beetroot course, it looked full of colour and tasted amazing. My instrumentation for this course was clarinet, keyboard and string quartet. I decided to focus on the different layers and what they could mean musically.

Beetroot:

an dark yet expressive theme introduced by the cello and developed by the viola and clarinet

Gentleman’s Relish:

sul ponticello and tremelo B flat in the all of the strings

Orange Puree:

high and expressive B natural in the solo viola and solo cello

Goat’s Cheese:

the suddenly soft broken C major 7th chord

My overall impression of the rabbit course was that it was warm and comforting, as it was served with a particularly warming carrot puree among other sauces. I scored the music for alto saxophone, double bass, keyboard and string quartet and focused on the warming impression I had from the course, giving the main melody to the saxophone and lightly accompanying with muted strings and intermittent keyboard chords. I built the harmonic structure on F sharp minor 9th chords and B dominant 9th chords.