nearly all my poems are letters to you (2020 rev. 2025)

For harp

Duration circa 11 minutes

Despite the title of this piece, there is no programmatic intention in the unfolding of the music: any perceived relationship between the title and the sounding material arises at the discretion of the composer or listener. Nevertheless, the work unfolds through a series of contrasting sections which, I hope, offer a compelling musical experience even in the absence of a narrative or extramusical programme. It is the interplay between and within these sections that constitutes the narrative content of the composition.

The material itself is self-borrowed from several bars in a solo piano work entitled Conrad’ s Toye (2020), composed immediately prior to nearly all my poems are letters to you, which in turn self-borrowed and transformed material from pneuma (2020), a work for solo contrabass recorder composed just beforehand. All three compositions share a recurring rhythmic device: four quavers in every 4/8 bar are superimposed with a tuplet of seven quavers within the time of four quavers, creating a 4:7 polymetric ratio. This relationship forms a structural and conceptual link between the pieces, situating them within the same material family.

© Marc Yeats, May 2020 (2025)