A Leaf
Incidental Music for Silent Narration — a work in which speech is fully articulated but never sounded, surrounded by an adaptable instrumental counterpoint and an optional audience-generated field of autumn sound.
Music written around an unheard voice
A Leaf is built around a reflective monologue on the cycle of life, using a single autumn leaf as its central metaphor. The text is performed with the care, timing, emotional weight and pronunciation of spoken narration — but in absolute silence. The audience sees language being formed while the instrumental music behaves as though audible dialogue were present.
The ensemble plays within an unusually restrained dynamic field, from near-silence to roughly one third of the normal output of the loudest instrument in use. Tone quality remains paramount: the intended effect is not weak playing, but fully formed instrumental sound turned down around an absent voice.
Five-part counterpoint, adaptable to the performers
The instrumental layer is five-part counterpoint that may be transposed and redistributed among alternative instruments. The piece is designed to remain viable as forces reduce, down to a minimum of three players, provided the uppermost and lowest parts remain represented. Notes may be displaced by an octave where necessary.
This makes the work deliberately portable: its identity lies in the relationship between contrapuntal texture, extreme dynamic restraint, silent narration and timing rather than in a fixed instrumental colour.
The auditorium becomes part of the sound field
An optional QR-linked loop supplies soft wind, falling leaves and other autumnal sounds recorded at a military cemetery, played quietly through audience phones. Audience members may also rustle programme pages or other light paper during the performance. The result is a dispersed, unstable acoustic environment surrounding the live ensemble rather than a conventional centrally reproduced soundtrack.
A life reduced to memory
The silent monologue follows the leaf from vitality through ageing, separation and fall, then turns toward remembrance: achievements recede, stories shorten, memory becomes vague, and a life may finally be compressed into a line on a memorial stone. The closing image connects private mortality with collective remembrance.
After the final silent words, the instrumental playing continues for roughly twenty seconds before being drawn into controlled silence.