new release: Siciliano for harp

The latest release of my music is a recording of the first performance of Siciliano for harp, beautifully played by Tijana Kozarčić in the rich acoustics and visual surroundings of the Auburn Uniting Church, Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia:

Many thanks to Peter Lamshed of Salvage Films (www.salvagefilms.com), who took the videos, and to Alan Chuck and Auburn Uniting Church for the use of the church.

Late in the afternoon, at the very end of our recording sessions, Peter asked Tijana to play it through one more time so he could experiment with different camera angles. This is the result, “take 2”, a perfect performance in one take, a slightly different interpretation of the music and some great close shots and views from the hand-held camera. (This video also shows Tijana’s technique very clearly and might be useful for student harpists to watch.)

A higher quality audio recording of Siciliano for harp is also available from Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and Deezer, and may appear on Shazam, TikTok, iHeart.com, Qobuz, Pandora, Kkbox (Korea), QQmusic, Wangyiyun and Kuwo in China, and Jiosaavn in India (I don’t have access to all of these platforms so am not always sure which music of mine they have).

The siciliano is a musical style or genre said to have originated as a folk dance in Sicily¹, but best known from examples by Bach, Mozart², Fauré and others. My Siciliano is in a style slightly closer to its folk origins. Apart from Siciliano for harp I’ve also made versions for 2 melody instruments:

• alto recorder, flute, oboe or clarinet with violin
• 2 clarinets, 2 alto recorders or 2 violins
• flute, oboe, cor anglais or violin with cello
• 2 cellos
• 2 violas da gamba

and a version for solo guitar. For sheet music of any version of Siciliano or any of my other compositions, please CONTACT me. To hear more of my music, go to the Listen page or my YouTube channel @neilbucklandmusic.

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Neil Buckland

¹ Apparently musicologists have attempted to trace an authentic folk tradition in Sicily but the results are inconclusive.

² Mozart’s sicilianos are generally not given that title; examples include the F-sharp minor slow movement of the Piano Concerto K488, the F minor Adagio from thePiano Sonata K280, the opening theme of the Piano Sonata K331, the finale of the String Quartet in d minor, K. 421, and the aria for soprano “Ach, ich fühl’s, es ist verschwunden” from The Magic Flute.