Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago

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'...the world all shut out… unchanged by any of man's doings…It was older than man; it was found so by incoming Celts and seafaring Norsemen and Columba's priests... the inimitable seaside brightness of the air, the brine and the iodine, the lap of the billows… all that I saw and felt my predecessors must have seen and felt with scarce a difference. I steeped myself in open air and in past ages.' - R L Stevenson, 1887

The piece was inspired by R L Stevenson’s impressions of the island of Erraid’s extraordinary ‘seascape’ with endless Atlantic skies, wind and the sea hitting the senses and strikingly bright air. The piece contrasts this description with the current issue of increasing pollution. I turn the feeling of breathing in a rush of fresh sea air into a musical feature. Gradually, the length of the ‘breaths’ decreases, like a person increasingly struggling and gasping for breath.

Note by Lisa Robertson

Recorded live at LSO St Luke's on Saturday 10 January 2026.

Daniel Shao flute
Chihiro Ono viola
Valerie Welbanks cello

#LondonSymphonyOrchestra #ContemporaryMusic #ChamberMusic
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