These five inventions for flute and cello were written for cellist Clare Brassil to perform with me alongside the first of the Benjamin Britten suites for solo cello in a concert paying homage to the composer celebrating the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Since Britten was clearly drawing on the inventiveness of Bach’s solo cello suites (and indeed claimed that he was inspired by Rostropovich’s performance of them) I decided to pay homage to Britten by following his example. My set of inventions draws (somewhat more transparently) on the clarity and instructiveness of Bach’s two-part inventions for keyboard. Like Britten, while remaining essentially (major/minor) tonal, I have strayed from the historical confines of Bach emulation in several respects, employing some gentle post-modern irony and some more angular motivic and harmonic elements. Also, following Britten’s example, I have employed a range of cyclic harmonic devices.