The Imagined Forest (2021)
for orchestra
Duration: 12 minutes
Co-commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra to mark the 150th anniversary of the Royal Albert Hall, London.
First performed by the RLPO, conducted by Domingo Hindoyan on September 5th 2021 as part of the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, London.
‘‘The Imagined Forest’ (2021) for orchestra is a fantastical journey through a space that appears to be a familiar impression of nature, but simultaneously somewhere entirely unknown. The forest, a place rooted in fairy tales, fantasy and folklore, often represents areas of refuge, danger, transformation, and adventure. Recognising the forest as an ethereal and intangible entity, the piece seeks to momentarily transport the listener somewhere intimate and yet, surreal.
The piece is inspired by the work of Clare Celeste Börsch, a Berlin-based artist who uses collage techniques to build imagined worlds filled with foliage and fauna. Bringing together thousands of delicate hand cut paper images, she creates intricate and immersive spaces to transform ordinary rooms into magical forests. ‘TheImaginedForest’ travels through the musical space by interweaving atmospheric textures and fragmentary melodic lines as a collage of fleeting images, just like the artwork upon which it is inspired. The music follows a voyage through the forest with moments of florid energy marked by tumbling, intervallic passages enacting the liveliness of nature itself, contrasted with large interludes of static stillness embodying expansive clearings. The central musical theme wanders through the piece towards enclosed glades where it pauses, as if it is interspersed with shimmering light from the canopies above and the dreamlike dances from the elements of nature; the orchestra glistens with sparkly interjections. Both music and art are fascinating in that countless people can all be experiencing the same work at once and yet, through the lens of their own influence, encounter a completely different artwork. This piece is therefore not a prescriptive experience but is instead a fictional journey; whether it is blooming with flora, captivated by colour, or an airy garden darkened by storm, it is the forest of your own imagination.’ ©G.E.M.2021
©Cover Image: 'Imagined Forest' Painting by Grace-Evangeline Mason 2021
“Grace-Evangeline Mason’s The Imagined Forest was drawn with pen-and-ink precision and filled with vivid orchestral colour...Glittering surfaces gave way to music of greater emotional power as we drew deeper into the forest. The young British composer, 26, is a name to watch.”
“Mason skilfully shapes her attractive material to ensure we experience the sense of a transforming encounter with the imaginary forest.”
“Vivid images of a wooded landscape with birdsong were inescapable, prompted, surely, by the sylvan magic of the opening commission shared by the BBC and the RLPO, Grace-Evangeline Mason’s The Imagined Forest...I certainly want to hear more of this composer. ”
“Mason is a supreme painter in sound. Straight from the gossamer opening, it was clear that this evocation of enchantment would be sonically seductive; Mason also has a fine grasp of structure however, so what we got was a satisfying 11 minutes or so in which vivid impressions of Nature herself...The match of emotion and intellect with highly skilful orchestration in Mason’s piece is a winning one. A most memorable work.”