Fand Catalogue

Barcarolle Blanche

for Piano

John Mitchell

£5.45

I composed Barcarolle Blanche in March 2024 as a gift for my friend Michael Graves, who was celebrating his 75th birthday later that month. Without forcing the compositional form too much, I was able to engineer the piece so as to contain exactly 75 bars—one for each year of the dedicatee’s life!

A good question might be posed as to why a barcarolle – a song-like piece in compound time that might emanate from the singing of a Venetian gondolier – would need to be assigned a colour, in this case white—and there does happen to be a certain rationale involved here. The explanation begins a decade earlier when I composed another celebratory barcarolle, this time for another friend’s 80th birthday. It had a wistful quality about it, with some unsettling moments, and I wanted to name it Barcarolle Triste. However, when I checked out this title online, I discovered there was already in existence a Spanish pop group of that name! I thus needed an alternative, and I came up with, and used, Barcarolle Noire. When it was published, I included a note to the effect that ‘noire’ in this instance did not literally mean ‘black’, but was meant to imply a dark, edgy quality associated with the cinematic term ‘film noir’. Penning the present barcarolle, which – being lighter and brighter in mood – was to some extent the antithesis of the earlier one, it struck me as quite appropriate to append ‘Blanche’ to its title accordingly.

—John Mitchell, July 2024

Sample pages

(Click to enlarge)

Recorded performance

Performed by the composer: John Mitchell, Piano

Catalogue code: FM284 • Published: 27th July 2024
Entry last updated: 27th July 2024