Tim Benjamin

composer, writer, storyteller

'twas Brillig

2024

This short piece for solo piccolo and strings is a musical depiction of what I imagine the jungle in Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky to be like - before the eponymous monster and knight with snicker-snacking vorpal blade turn up. The poem mentions a "Jubjub bird" - in my piece, this part is played by the solo piccolo. The rest of the jungle (slithy toves, mimsy borogroves, mome raths and so on) is played by the strings, on a particularly brillig day.

We might imagine that the Jabberwocky itself turns up in terrible majesty at the end of the piece.

This bird is not a Jubjub, but a Great Tinamou, caught on a camera trap on the Los Amigos conservation area in the Amazon by Amazon Conservation - click for the full video, which is soundless, so perhaps take 'twas Brillig as your soundtrack!

Duration

8 minutes

Instrumentation

Solo piccolo, strings

First performance

September 2024, Todmorden Summer Orchestra project (soloist: Carisse White)

Listen

Carisse White (piccolo) and the Todmorden Summer Orchestra project (live recording)

Request a score / parts

If you would like to see a score and/or require a set of parts for this music, please contact me.