Suite Pacifica

Ocean Blue
Turquoise Lagoon
Pacific Breakers
Chorale Reef
Barracuda!
Little Seahorse
Challenger Deep
Flying Fish

Here is an eight-movement work from this Liverpool-born composer.
It begins with the gentle, arpeggio-based Ocean Blue. The use of open strings gently clashing with its surrounding arpeggios only serves to enhance the deliberate effect of the waves lapping on the shores.
Turquoise Lagoon almost continues the mood of the previous with its warm and slightly exotic chords based around fourths.
Pacific Breakers is partly based around a melody in the bass with an offbeat pair of fourths above. The use of fourths as a common string in this work was beginning by now to become apparent and was helping to unify the work.
Barracuda! is harsh with flying dissonant triplets opening the piece before running semiquaver arpeggio figurations take over to be replaced by the triplet idea at the end.
Little Seahorse is rather enigmatic and its harmonies a little elusive but the effect is intentional, given the rather odd looking creature he is writing about.
Challenger Deep opens with richly exotic chords; its Lento espressivo taking us into unusual harmonic territories; still with the interval of a fourth uppermost throughout.
Flying Fish is, as you might expect, a presto 6/8 quaver running idea that comes swiftly and surprisingly to a piano coda rather than a whizz-bang finish.
The work is not too hard although a few places do need a firm technique to make best use out of it. I liked the majority of the set and enjoyed much of what was there; many players with a good technique will no doubt do so too.
Chris Dumigan (Classical Guitar Magazine)


This suite is made up of nine short pieces, all in the same musical language. This piece may best be described as polytonal, with weak tonal center(s). The composer explores the resulting opportunities to focus on color and for freedom in cadences. The first movement, «Ocean Blue« is a freely-arpeggiated structure with a good sense of the instrument's possibilities. Many of the progressions are set in high positions, giving room for open-string pedal points. On instruments other than the guitar, the chords here are of limited interest, but here they make things happen. Such easy chordal progressions as II-V, VI-II ..., take on a totally different «attitude« against the open string pedal points.
The next movement, «Turquoise Lagoon« reveals itself in the manner of an impressionist painting. Here, the chordal constructions are subordinated to the composer's need for color. His palette does not give color in abundance, but tastefully makes these shallow waters slightly visible.
Chorale Reef« is a short fugato, the theme returning in different voices in a neo-classical way. All of us familiar with the fugues of J. S. Bach, S. L. Weiss, and modern polyphonic composers like Igor Rekhin and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco know a little about fingering in these structures. I have a feeling that in this one the fingering came first (!?). It certainly gives some variation against the overall homophonic structures in the rest of the suite. «Barracuda« the fifth movement, is a more dramatic concept. The composer uses the same arpeggiated technical solutions as before, but puts a more vivid touch to it.
Little Seahorse, a small aquarelle sketching out this strange little sea creature, is one of my favorites.
Challenger Deep is the next, a more chord-based movement; the closing movement is «Flying Fish«, which brings back the opening ideas in a slightly altered form and closes the suite nicely.
Altogether, this work shows a composer able to keep his inspiration in his grip, not taking all the passing crossroads. To me, this is a very important feature, and, combined with his knowledge of the instrument, it makes this suite a very nice achievement.
The technical challenges are reasonable; this music can be played by professionals as well as by medium-grade students.
Gisle Krogseth (Soundboard Magazine)