Celtic Dances

	William Mathias: Celtic Dances
		Scoring: 2 fl(2nd+picc),2 ob, 2 cl, 2 bsn, 4 hn, 2 tpt, 3 tbn, 1 tba(opt), timp, 3 perc, cel, hp, strings
		Duration: 14 minutes
		William Mathias wrote: "On one level this work is concerned with certain characteristics to be found in the music of Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall, and Brittany; this, however, in purely instinctive terms as none of the dances makes direct use of existing folk-tunes, and no-one dance is associated with a specific country or region. At a second and more important level, the music is intended to evoke an area of feeling largely associated with the mythological past, even though such an idea is here expressed in terms of our own time. Rite and magic, jewelled colours, the spirit of play, wistfulness, lyrical warmth, and (above all) rhythmic vitality - these are all qualities associated with Celtic art and tradition, and they were present as part of that area of experience which prompted the composition of this work. The four dances form an integrated set, the music of the introduction returning in a new guise towards the end of the fourth dance." Celtic Dances was commissioned (in association with the Welsh Arts Council) for the National Youth Orchestra of Wales in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Welsh League of Youth.