Gavin Bryars

Alaric I or II

The piece is technically quite difficult and, curiously, it is the lower instruments which have the hardest parts - the baritone sax having some altissimo passages and, eventually, ending the piece with a brief elegiac solo in the pibroch piping tradition. The piece is essentially lyrical and even vocal in character, thereby following Grainger's idea of the saxophone family (SATB) as a parallel to the family of human voices.The title comes from the name of the mountain, Mount Alaric, in South West France, opposite the Chateau where Gavin Bryars spent the summer. No-one seemed to know which of the two King Alarics the name referred to.