Suite Antique is a three movement, Neo-Baroque work for Oboe, Violin, 'Cello & Harpsichord. It was composed as a present for my younger brother, Nathaniel Mander, a harpsichord student at the Royal Academy of Music.
I took as my inspiration for the piece the essence of J.S.Bach's instrumental output. In particular I wanted to convey elements of a Baroque idiom fused with subtle hints of my own compositional voice. The form of the work owes everything to Bach's concerto form. The opening movement is a ternary form minuet, the second movement an Italianate Siciliana, and the final movement a virtuosic tour de force in which there is an emancipation of the harpsichord redolent of Brandenburg concerto no.5.
The subtlety of the fusion of styles can be exemplified in the opening four bars of the first movement. Nominally this is composed as a 'minuet', and as such, one would expect a regular '3 beat in a bar' continuity throughout; however, after one bar of 3/4, there follows a 2/4 bar and then a 4/4 bar, creating a wonderfully off-kilter opening phrase. Further to this, a deliberate discontinuity is established by a sudden shift in the tonal centre near the end of the first stanza; from G major to D-flat major, a tritone away, which when repeated gives a bitter-sweet instability.
However, with all that said, I would echo the sentiments of the French composer Francis Poulenc by saying: "Do not analyse my music, Love it!" In the case of this particular piece anyway!