University of York Music Press

The BBC commissioned work will be conducted by Andrew Litton at the Barbican, and it will be preceded at 6pm by a pre-concert talk by Vic Hoyland.

Phoenix is the final composition in a triptych commissioned by the BBC. The previous two works being Vixen (1997) and Qibti (2003), the performances of which were received with extraordinary enthusiasm by audiences and critics alike. Hoyland's three orchestral work are drawn from three key Mediterranean ports: Vixen from Palermo, where Hoyland works every year; Qibti from the ancient city of Alexandria; Phoenix from Venice.

Phoenix continues Hoyland's fascination with architecture as a sequence of evolving spaces: experienced, permeable, decaying, where shadows are cast, and through which reverberating sounds belie the solidity of its structures. Vic Hoyland on Phoenix: 'I don't believe my pieces to be at all programmatic, but I draw on absolutely specific things that feed and enrich the imagination, and help me conceive these large tapestries in sound. With Phoenix we come (back) to Venice. The first part contemplates Byzantine St Mark's, the Greek cross, the five domes, circular patterns, inward and dark, the campanile with its great bell, and much else besides, eventually to burn up and collapse. After the link passage, the second part contemplates the Frari church, the Latin cross, line and light, the Venetian Gothic (Renaissance) and, more than anything else, the superb triptych by Giovanni Bellini that was designed for and is housed in a side chapel of the Frari church. The postlude hints at Stravinsky's Requiem Canticles and so at the ending of a great era in culture, associated with Venice.'