String Quartet No.2
‘Nelson Interludes’
(1995/2009)
duration: 12’
GRT • 060
score available from
Australian Music
Centre
program note
This 2nd string
quartet is cast in four interludes taken from the
opera Nelson and reordered for musical ends as follows:
I: The Founding of a Fiery
Star
II: Queen of
England
III: Like Hawks we
Soar
IV: Shadow of an Empty
Cowl
The Founding of a Fiery
Star opens the
opera and depicts Nelson at the height of the Battle of St.
Vincent – a battle in which he first made a name for
himself as a strategic maverick. In Act 2, Lady Emma
Hamilton flirts with the married Nelson in Naples declaring
she would bestow great accolades were she
The Queen of
England. By
contrast, Like
Hawks we Soar describes a predatory Nelson in the lead
up to the Battle of the Nile, which ends Act 1.
Shadow of an Empty
Cowl is the
longest of the four interludes. This tragic duet toward the
end of Act 3 is essentially a fantasised wish for a better
life between Emma and Nelson, who is then killed at the
height of the battle of Trafalgar. Despite Nelson’s wishes,
Emma was ridiculed and shunned by English society. She died
ten years later, destitute and alcoholic, and was buried
away from him at Calais, in France.