Wild Mossy Mountains (1982)

Wild Mossy Mountains is a short (5-minute) tone poem/toccata written for the Edinburgh-based organist Michael Bonaventure, who gave the piece its very colourful and dramatic registrations. The title comes from some lines by Robert Burns –

‘Yon wild, mossy mountains sae lofty and wide,
That nurse in their bosom the youth o’ the Clyde;’

and this seemed appropriate because the overall shape of the music has the smoothly rising and falling contours of the Scottish hillsides Burns was describing.

Michael Bonaventure first performed this piece in St Stephen’s Church, Edinburgh as part of the Festival Fringe in 1982.

© Judith Weir