Arrival on iTunes and Eternal Dance - Robin Hill

We were very excited to find that 'Virtuoso' has now arrived on iTunes, and spent the evening looking at the stores around the world, which gave us quite a buzz!

One of the pieces we were listening to was 'Eternal Dance', by Robin, so I decided to jump to track 8 today, and tell you more about it.
'Eternal Dance' is the first movement from a suite of pieces for guitar and orchestra called, 'Eternal Dances'
I must say that it is one of my favourites as the piece captures the imagination immediately with its unusual, but highly rhythmic, time signature of 5/8 with occasional bars of 7/8.

The piece also features a scordatura tuning, with bottom E down to C, and, A down to G. The key is C minor.

Throughout the movement there is much use of percussion with the initial theme stated on solo guitar, then taken up by the orchestra.

Rasgueados are then featured, which reinforce the driving rhythms, and impel the movement forward to greet the appearance of the French horn. The horn then states a secondary theme, whilst the strings continue the rhythm, accompanying with an agitated nervous energy.

A beautiful, soaring solo violin passage then appears with guitar accompaniment and the unrelenting pulse continues.

As the piece returns to solo guitar with the main theme, it is punctuated by the orchestra, before the flourish of a cadenza from the guitar.

The orchestra then restates the theme before fading into the distance, with the final statement, once again, on solo guitar.

The whole movement lasts for 5 minutes and 59 seconds and someone once told me that they always had an image of Roman Legions on the march whenever they listened to it! It is certainly a powerful and visceral piece of music.
Go and hear for yourself , or, if you don't have Apple iTunes software installed, here, and make your own decision.