Three Epitaphs were written between 1996 and 1999 as reactions to the deaths of three friends. While they may be played and understood as abstract music, each has specific connotations with the person in whose memory it was composed.

Dudley Hyams (1942-1998) was a talented but largely unrecognised composer. I started to write the piece as a general musical portrait but when I had nearly completed it, I had occasion to hear the first performance of Dudley?s last composition, which took the form of three piano pieces. I was particularly struck by the last chord of the last piece and phoned the pianist to find out its exact composition. It turned out that the chord exactly resembled horizontally the thematic outline of the piece that I had nearly completed - a rare and uncanny example of Jungian synchronicity. The chord is played by the piano in Dudley?s form at the end of the movement.

Joanne Johnson (1972-1997) was also a gifted composer who died in tragic circumstances at the age of only twenty-five. The ostinato pattern which forms the basis of this movement is taken from a fragment of the cello part of an early work of Jo?s that I performed at her memorial concert.

Tracey Chadwell (1959-1996) was a singer of phenomenal musicality and artistry. Just before her death from leukaemia, she had intended to commission me to write a Song Cycle for her accompanied by Clarinet, Violin and Piano. What remains represents different types of singing. The Clarinet, of all instruments the one most resembling the human voice, plays a melody; the Violin plays material that approximates to birdsong while the piano represents a kind of background chorale. Eventually, the three types of song coalesce into one at the movement?s conclusion.