Bestia

Duration:

20'

1 Storm Devils –
2 Ghost of Monkeynaut (Ode to Gordo)
3 Creatures of the Groves –
4 Gilda, The Elephant Who Makes Boys Disappear

This concerto grew from a fascination with medieval bestiaries, where real and fantastical creatures are catalogued in short, illustrated entries and defined as much by behaviour, story and allegory as by physical form. John Henry Fleming’s Fearsome Creatures of Florida (2009) offers a satirical modern counterpart: a bestiary shaped by local reports and rumours, in which animals are altered by their environments and by human impact. Drawing on this world, the concerto places the trumpet at its centre, shifting between raw, animalistic energy and more reflective lyricism.

The opening movement begins with scurrying textures and lilting trumpet lines before hardening into something more strident and unrelenting. Fleming’s Storm Devils are indistinguishable from ordinary suburban animals in calm weather, but when storms arrive and lightning ‘flips an internal switch’, they soak up the rain, swelling to a grotesque size as they thrash through their idyllic neighbourhoods.

In the second movement, the piccolo trumpet mimics the chatter of squirrel monkeys in an ode to Gordo, the foot-tall monkey launched into space from Cape Canaveral in 1958, whose capsule was lost at sea. At first submerged within surging orchestral swells, the trumpet sharpens into a biting rhythmic drive before ebbing towards a more elegiac close. Reports tell of a lone figure in a space suit roaming the Florida coastline, at times a fragile apparition, at others more hostile, its faint cries carrying on the Atlantic air.

Pummelling, gnashing episodes gather force in the third movement, reflecting the hazards of working in Florida’s citrus groves – the trumpet rallying and propelling the activity forwards. Accounts describe creatures forged by this environment: Globesuckers latch onto workers’ heads, mistaking them for ripe fruit; Cage Spiders ensnare victims in dense webs; Shaker Gremlins turn industrial machinery violently against its operators.

The final movement turns to Gilda, the escaped circus elephant glimpsed by three children before vanishing into the landscape. What remains is less the animal than its afterimage – remembered, retold and pursued. The sighting grows uncertain, half-seen and half-imagined, yet fixed in memory. Gilda is never found, and the boy who continues a lifelong search disappears in turn, leaving only the question of what, if anything, was ever really there.