Many years ago, during a rehearsal of one of my more complicated efforts, a friend exclaimed in exasperation: ‘Why don’t you write a piece in D major in 4/4 time?’ Paean is exactly that. Apart from a very short passage towards the end, only the notes of D major scale are used and the time signature is 4/4 throughout. My initial thought was to call the piece ‘D major, 4/4’ but was persuaded that this might be a little too prosaic so I settled for Paean, which is intended to represent something of the music’s atmosphere of remorseless optimism. Paean was commissioned by Andrew Sherwood and The Musicians of All Saints, to whom it is dedicated. It was first performed by them in October 1993 at All Saints Arts Centre, Lewes.