An image in my ear kicked o this piece, drawn from Coleridge’s famous The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, with a twist: here the Albatross, that great winged thing, wasn’t slain and slung around the neck of a sailor but bound instead to the bow of the boat. A few choice contrasts emerged from there: heavy lightness, grounded flight, wet, weighted wings. Bound to the Bow is charged with such caged kinetic energy. Frantic wisps of sound tangle into dense, noisy webs. Bows swish across strings like birds in boxes: flapping without flight, clawing towards tone, trying to rise. 

Ash Fure 

Appears courtesy of C.F. Peters Musikverlag – the publisher of Bound to the Bow by Ash Fure.