The website is very simple. ...The mp3 files are streamed so they do not take a long time to download nor will they take up space on your hard disk.

To look at the scores and hear Tim's music you will need Scorch to playback the music. Click here to download the Scorch plug-in for your browser. Scorch takes up little space and loads up quickly.

If you wish to be advised of any new compositions added to the website, or if you want any scores or parts, please contact Tim using the contact option.

Welcome to thenoterow.com the official website of British composer Tim Ellis.

Tim studied composition with Anthony Gilbert and Peter Maxwell Davies at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester from 1973 to 1975.

Despite their excellent teaching Tim entered a stylistic dead end. However he continued to compose, exploring styles and technique during a very long fallow period. In November 2002, at a performance of Incises and Sur Incises by Pierre Boulez, Tim realised how he could use both motivic and serial techniques for his own purposes.

The website contains both Scorch and mp3 files of Tim's compositions, which include music for string quartet, solo cello, flute, oboe, piano, vocal music, a piece for violin and orchestra and two occasional pieces for mixed ensemble. It also includes links to several composer and software sites.

This site is designed for a minimum screen display of 800x600 and is Mac and Windows compatible.

If something doesn't work please use the contact option with the details of the broken link.

Tim was born in Gloucester, England in 1954.

His father was in the Royal Air Force, consequently the family moved about a lot. Before he was 10 Tim had lived in Singapore, Hong Kong and Aden, and in the U.K. in Gloucestershire and Rutland (England's smallest county). Since then He has been less mobile living in north and east London, Lancashire, Cambridgeshire and Manchester.

Between 1973 and 1975 Tim studied composition with Anthony Gilbert and Peter Maxwell Davies at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester. He has always composed, but it is only since about 1997 he began to compose again with a more serious intent.

However it was not until 2002 that he found what he had been wanting. Two concerts, one in London and one in Paris, made him reconsider his compositional skills. The composers whose music he heard were Ruth Crawford Seeger, Berg, Shostakovich, Boulez and Berio. This led to the composition of "éclats", which Tim considers to be his true Opus 1.

Tim grew up with records and the wireless as his main sources of music. His parents' modest record collection included popular music from singers such as Caterina Valente and Doris Day, some popular classics (one track was the "Laudate Dominum" from Mozart's "Vesperae solennes de confessore" K.399, which he still loves) and several recordings of Gilbert and Sullivan, whose works he unashamedly continues to enjoy.

In about 1969 Tim discovered twentieth century music. Britten's War Requiem was the starting point. He avidly listened to anything he considered "modern", from early Richard Strauss through to the avant-garde. He became interested in many contemporary composers, especially Pierre Boulez since that time. His musical explorations worked back through time and he has discovered several composers from the past whose music is of great interest to him.

Some of the composers who have written music (maybe only one piece) he admires include (in purely alphabetical order) Adams, Bartok, Berg, Berlioz, Birtwistle, Boulez, Britten, Crumb, Debussy, Gerhard, Glass, Herrmann, Lutyens, Maconchy, Mahler, Messiaen, Monteverdi, Mozart, Panufnik, Ravel, Satie, Schubert, Schumann, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Takemitsu, Tallis, Tippett, Varèse, Webern. If you know of any interesting (or better) websites devoted to any of these composers please send an e-mail.

Tim has experimented with various techniques since he left college. Since 2002 he developed his own view of motivic and serial methods. Composers as diverse as Boulez, Britten, Lutyens, Stravinsky and Webern have been the main influences here. Tim may start with a "conventional" 12 note row. Sometimes he may break the row into smaller units or use just a small part of the matrix. The matrix itself can become the object rather than the row (as in the manner of Peter Maxwell Davies' use of magic squares). The row does not exist as an immutable object, but as the starting point. Elizabeth Lutyens said the row was useful because she knew what the next note would be. There is a grain of truth in her remark, but she would not slavishly follow the note order if it did not make musical sense. This, for Tim is the most important rule. Always ensure the music makes sense as you write it, no matter what your style.

Tim considers the note row as a "sound object", rather like a sculpture. For him, the use of the different versions, transpositions or fragments of the row is like looking at a piece of sculpture viewed from various angles. Tim has said that two sculptors he admires are Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. So much of their work strikes him as conceived in three dimensions to be viewed from all possible angles. He feels more drawn to the abstract forms of Hepworth.

"I must abandon the past. In the beginning in the womb you are tied to an umbilical cord. You're fed through it. Eventually you cut it. You can still love your mother but you have to feed yourself." Pierre Boulez

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"One year my skirt is too high, the next too low, and sometimes, no less accidentally, à la mode. So it is in music, at least for those who do not follow fashion but try to write as clearly as possible according to their own intuition and the promptings of the inner ear." Elisabeth Lutyens

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"Consider what moderation is required to express oneself so briefly. Each glance can be extended into a poem, each sigh into a novel. But to express a novel in a single gesture, a joy in a single indrawn breath..." Arnold Schoenberg

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"...people will always insist upon looking in music for something that is not there...music interests them in so far as it touches on elements outside it..." Igor Stravinsky

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"I love gardens. They do not reject people. There one can walk freely, pause to view the entire garden, or gaze at a single tree. Plants, rocks, and sand show changes, constant changes." Toru Takemitsu

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"I must abandon the past. In the beginning in the womb you are tied to an umbilical cord. You're fed through it. Eventually you cut it. You can still love your mother but you have to feed yourself." Pierre Boulez

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"One year my skirt is too high, the next too low, and sometimes, no less accidentally, à la mode. So it is in music, at least for those who do not follow fashion but try to write as clearly as possible according to their own intuition and the promptings of the inner ear." Elisabeth Lutyens

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Consider what moderation is required to express oneself so briefly. Each glance can be extended into a poem, each sigh into a novel. But to express a novel in a single gesture, a joy in a single indrawn breath..." Arnold Schoenberg

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"...people will always insist upon looking in music for something that is not there...music interests them in so far as it touches on elements outside it..." Igor Stravinsky

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"I love gardens. They do not reject people. There one can walk freely, pause to view the entire garden, or gaze at a single tree. Plants, rocks, and sand show changes, constant changes." Toru Takemitsu

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sibelius is a highly sophisticated tool and like other software (for instance Photoshop) it comes at a premium price, but what it offers is excellent (IMHO).

For those of you with a limited budget there is Capella. It has fewer bells and whistles, but what it lacks against Sibelius it makes up for in versatility. Capella is offered by a German company and the website is in German and English.

As for playing mp3s (and other audio formats), there are many programmes around but you won't find anything to beat iTunes. It's free and it's available for Mac OS X and Windows 2000 or XP.

Programme note for string quartet i a

This is a highly compressed piece in one movement which however contains all four "traditional movements". It begins with a kind of traditional sonata allegro complete with a repeated (but slightly varied) opening. A development section begins but quickly dries up and becomes a "slow movement", loud and impassioned. This collapses and a scherzo (played pizzicato without first violin) takes over. The "finale" is a transposed version of the opening with a slightly amended coda.

Programme note for string quartet i b

This uses the same row as the quartet i a. The refrain appear three times, each time it gets faster and is performed slightly differently by the players. In between each appearance of the refrain are a scherzo and a slow movement.

The use of the row produces a more tonally orientated use of the row.

Anybody writing for solo cello has to acknowledge nine works against which one will be judged, six by Bach and three by Britten. This piece is structurally related to Britten's First Cello Suite Opus 72, which I have always admired.

The work is introduced and punctuated three times, each time by a pair of movements, a statement and an improvisation. Each short statement presents the note row broken into smaller groups of notes, answered by an slightly distorted echo. Similarly each short improvisation follows the same pattern. The Staement and Improvisation pairings get slower as the work progresses, whereas the main movements become faster.

Lament, the first main movement, is placed high in the cello's range.

Dance, the second main movement, is gentler, sometimes playful.

Labyrinth, the third and final main movement is a moto perpetuo that leads without a break into the

Coda, the fourth and final improvisation on an unheard fourth statement. It is a final cadence in C, which is derived from the note row.

Performance Note

Metronome markings are suggestions only.

Always observe the difference between a double bar line and a final bar line between movements.

frammenti i is a piece that has been in my mind for some time. I have been impressed by the quality of technique, performance and musicianship of several amateur clarinettists in London. I needed to compose something that matched or exceeded their ability. That is for others to judge.

The music is derived from the "chromatic" row I used in "lagoon music ii". It has both chromatic and scalic patterns within it and any possible tonal references are not fortuitous. The music is not barred and the silences, unlike in my "elegy for solo viola", are not measured. The performer can determine the duration as well as the tempo. I have given a metronome marking of ±110. I would expect the tempo to fluctuate between about 100 and 120.

for flute alone is in a single movement of about 5 minutes. All the material and its development is derived from the opening seven bars. It is like walking along a path at different times of the year, nothing is the same, but nothing is different.

Notes marked "+" are to be played "breathy" as possible.

Programme note for le jour des quarante-trois fois

-Un jour, j'ai vu le soleil se coucher quarante-trois fois!
Et un peu plus tard tu ajoutais:
- Tu sais... quand on est tellement triste on aime les couchers de soleil...
- Le jour des quarante-trois fois tu étais donc tellement triste?
Mais le petit prince ne répondit pas

Le Petit Prince

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Le Petit Prince is one of the most beautiful books in all of literature. Like the "Alice" stories it can be read by grown ups or by young people. The interpretation depends on the age of the reader or the young person within. While looking for a title for this piece the above quote came to mind. It suits the mood. I do not intend to portray the dialogue nor the sunsets through music. The music is my response to the silence of le petit prince.

The work is for solo oboe. It is a set of continual variations. Each motif can be considered as a sunset. Each variation contains one or more motifs or fragments which are either repeated or developed slightly. Each is different like a sunset is different.

The "Theme" sets out the four versions of the note row from the matrix. The first variation is somewhat rhapsodic, the second more spiky, like the thorns on a rose. The third variation attempts melismas, not one of which is able to grow. The fourth variation is a development of the first. It contains the climax of the piece. The fifth and final variation is the opening theme slightly varied.

Performance Note

The pause between each movement is written out. The performer is free to make each pause longer or shorter in performance.

The file «Iain HD:Users:thenoterow:Update Website:compositions:pages:Žclats » was missing.

Venice has always been a special city for artists. Its hold on me started in 1984, and the grip has tightened following a return visit in 2004.

The brief three movements of lagoon music - i (sketches) are an immediate response to my visit, similar to Turner's sketchbooks. The work and the movements are not complete, but starting points for future works, sketches.

i - canal and campanile, is a soundscape of morning near San Marco, the water gently lapping and the bells interrupt the morning silence.

ii - reflections I, is a playful left hand (staccato) right hand (legato) mirror, but the reflections in the right hand are not always exact replicas, just like the movement of water disturbs the original.

iii - reflections ii, is a more dramatic movement, like the disturbance of water in the wake of a boat.

The two movements are contrasting nocturnes. They both use two note rows, one chromatic, the other harmonic/melodic. The alla barcarola uses a sonata form. The second movement la laguna di notte is a fantasia arising from a gesture in the alla barcarola.

The work was first performed as part of a composers' workshop at the church of St. John the Baptist, Frome on 10 July 2006 as part of the 2006 Frome Festival. The pianist was Peter Donohoe.

elegy for solo viola

This is the most personal work I have written. The reason for the elegy will remain private. The music is derived from one the note rows I used in lagoon music ii.

It is a simple statement of the loneliness I felt when I wrote the piece on 10 November 2006, a statement of loss, too personal to put into words.

The material is based on two simple figures of three notes, one chromatic and one harmonic/melodic. The piece is an exploration of these two cells. I hand in my mind the sound of the lyrical playing of certain violinists, especially Joshua Bell and Maxim Vengerov.

Programme note for il pleure dans mon coeur

Verlaine's constrained use of rhyme and sound in this poem encouraged the use of a simple three note figure of a falling semitone and minor third as (almost) the basis for the entire song. The song was written at a single sitting.

Programme note for ariel songs

These are settings of Ariel's songs from Shakespeare's The Tempest. They can be performed by voice alone, or, as in this version, with bass recorder. Other possibilities would include alto flute or clarinet.

The settings are for a voice with limited range but with a good understanding of music. The music has a modal feel. These settings are appropriate for performance as part of The Tempest.

Programme note for berceuse pour chloé

Tim wrote this after the birth of the daughter of two friends in 2001. A year later, after some revision, he offered it as a first birthday present for Chloé. It was well received (more by the grown-ups present than the recipient!). The ensemble is flexible.