Flight of Fancy is a lively and colourful piece of approximately 3 minutes duration. It is available in five different arrangements! This arrangement is for alto saxophone and piano.

The first section kicks off in an energetic and cheerful way with the bright upper registers of both instruments at play. Also evident in the opening section are ideas such as angular melodic lines played in unison, a little harp-like piano accompaniment texture and a contrasting theme fashioned atop a jazzy, dance-inspired bassline.

The middle section of the work is perhaps the more unearthly music of the work. Little updrafts and whirlwinds of tinkling, glockenspiel-like piano figurations add a haunting quality to a chromatically inflected melody, evoking, for me, images of night and a kind of magic.

The final section of the piece – which brings us back to earth with its recapitulation of earlier material – is characterised by the sound of its ‘slow-to-start’, hand-cranked engine. – M.O.

Flight of Fancy by Matthew Orlovich, performed by Barry Cockcroft (alto saxophone) and Adam Pinto (piano).