I heard this touchingly beautiful piece on Classic FM only last week as I was driving down to Ashbourne, Derbyshire, and I immediately bought the Album when I returned home. I greatly enjoyed the other tracks too.
I was struck by the proud, yet wistful Scottish folk-song cadences, and also by Phamie Gow's piano playing here: delicate rubato and poetic phrasing. This piece is from her 2007 Album "Moments of Time".
I took these pictures recently of parts of the Derbyshire Peak District National Park, mostly centred around Parwich and Great Longstone.
The opening slide is of Cressbrook Dale, bedecked with ramsons, the garlic scent of which pervades places like this in May (and this year even late June-July). I should have included a picture of water avens, my favourite wildflower from the rose family, but I forgot.
At 2:13, a glimpse of a clump of trees at centre: this is Cross Low, a late Neolithic/Bronze Age barrow.
I have never had the pleasure of visiting Annandale - a strath in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, named after the River Annan - but that Ms Gow's artistry here is evocative of this marvellous place I have no doubt.
30 июн 2013
