Sound clips from some of these compositions are available for download from the MP3 page
Duration - 16 minutes
Published by Schott
A copy of the score is at The British Music Information Centre
My first acknowledged composition, which enjoyed some success with the London Sinfonietta. It perhaps owes a little too much to the influence of Birtwistle but it has, in places, a sensuousness of timbre which is all my own (likewise its rhythmic energy). It is doubtful whether thirty-year-old pieces have any current marketability but it would be good to hear it again.
"Solo and accompaniment, however, is hardly the most precise way to describe the democratically complex, physically and intellectually challenging interactions between all the participating instruments, or the subtle thinning out of its highly active textures into pools of almost static illumination."
Robert Henderson - Telegraph
Duration - 18 minutes
Published by Schott. Study score ED 11377
A copy of the score is at The British Music Information Centre
Somewhat over-ambitious homage to Berio, extended vocal-techniques and space/time notation (but Jane Manning liked it!).
Duration 11 minutes
Published by Schott.
A copy of the score is at The British Music Information Centre
An audio extract is available:
Extract - 530KB
"... a mirrored focus of the words which achieves more by sleight of hand in 11 minutes than many composers achieve in half an hour's dramatic bludgeoning."
Dominic Gill - Financial Times
Commissioned by the University of Nottingham for student players from the Music Department, this work 'sets' an evocative poem by Bill MacCormick. Perhaps because I had to temper my imagination with purely practical considerations the work is focused in a way that some of my earlier output is not. Organising the tape-delay system in 1981 was horrendously difficult; today one simply plugs in an FX unit. This piece gives me as much pleasure now as it did twenty years ago. Almost any university or conservatoire ensemble could play this piece with aplomb.
Memories are fallow
of a time before the ages of
descent were come,
when a depthed look of innocence
broke the glory of a less sullen world.
Together, gold and goodness
o'erflowed the tide of welcoming,
as when stars
were influence, not ends
(fireflies of indeterminate species)
and the world
- a wonder waking,
not needing seven especials.
Then, life was to gather, great.
First performed by The Albany Brass Quintet
Duration 9 minutes
Published by Warwick Music
A copy of the score is at The British Music Information Centre
Recorded by the Fine Arts Brass Ensemble on the Metier label (released in 2005). MSV CD92049
An audio extract is available:
Extract - 3.1MB
A tour-de-force for 2 Trumpets, Horn, Trombone & Tuba. It needs five excellent players, with lips of steel and lungs of iron. Malcolm Arnold it certainly is not - you will search in vain for jaunty motifs from the trumpets and rising fifths from the horn. It posits the idea that the brass quintet is worthy of more than just being a barely-tolerable joke. Nonetheless it is an eminently accessible composition.
Duration 19 minutes
Published by Schott. ED 12283
Recorded by Steven Neugarten on Metier Sound & Vision MSV CD 92008
A copy of the score is at The British Music Information Centre
An audio extract is available:
Extract (Movement 1) - 477KB
Commissioned by Peter Lawson (who played the piece all over the country) this work has been described a "a contemporary classic." Less apocalyptically, other critics have commented - "the entire work, an ambitious structure by any standards, held together impressively" (Stephen Pettitt - The Times) - "the most striking solo piano work to come my way since Carter's Night Fantasies" (Bayan Northcott - The Sunday Telegraph) - "a formidable construction of Bartokian angularity, enclosing a slow movement of poised, sweet lyricism." (Andrew Clements - New Statesman)
A piece with which I have very few dissatisfactions (even after fifteen years). Steven Neugarten's recorded performance is masterly.
Duration 20 minutes
Published by Schott. Study score ED 12355
A copy of the score is at The British Music Information Centre
An audio extract is available:
Movement 1 - 754KB
"... among Sackman's all too infrequent products Corranach is clearly another odd gem."
David Murray - Financial Times
Loosely based on the description of a Scottish funeral in Smollett's Humphrey Clinker this is an uncompromising work which was deliberately aimed at the technical excellence of the Lontano ensemble (who commissioned it). However, a more-than-creditable performance was recently given by students at the Royal College of Music so its difficulties are evidently not that great.
"Birtwistle might have projected such bold contrasts of refined and raucous textures, but the sound of it all is quite Sackman's own."
Bayan Northcott - Sunday Telegraph
Commissioned by the Park Lane Group
Duration 12 minutes
Originally published by Schott: copyright re-assigned to Warwick Music in 1999.
A copy of the score is at The British Music Information Centre
Recorded by Simon Hogg on the Metier label (released in 2005). MSV CD92049
The Trombone is a noble and powerful instrument yet is unable to shake off clownish associations. My Sonata treats it with as much respect as any of the 'more expressive' orchestral instruments. The performer will need considerable strength and stamina (and the piano part is similarly big-boned) but the collective result is, I hope, both intellectually stimulating and emotionally satisfying.
"...a contribution of real substance to a difficult medium."
Bayan Northcott - The Independent
[almost exactly the same instrumentation as in Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind]
Commissioned by the South Bank Board for the 1987 Summerscope Festival.
Duration 12 minutes
Published by Schott
A copy of the score is at The British Music Information Centre
First performance given by the London Sinfonietta, conducted by Roger Norrington.
The first of a number of works in which music from the past has conditioned the composed result. In this case, the Machaut source was part of the commission. Twelve minutes of instrumental agility and rhythmic excitement which seemed to please the London Sinfonietta players at the first performance (if their unsolicited comments to me afterwards were anything to go by). Recently, students from the Royal Northern College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama both successfully played the piece on remarkably little rehearsal time.
"Sackman's ingenious design, his predilection for decisive rhythms, a natural flair for line and a technique of scoring which contrasts rather than fuses sound-types all contribute to the work's immediate attractiveness."
Stephen Pettitt - The Times
Commissioned by the BBC
Duration 15 minutes
Published by Schott
A copy of the score is at The British Music Information Centre
An audio extract is available:
Extract (Movement 1) - 920KB
This work has languished in limbo-land since the first performance, which is a pity since the string writing is highly accomplished (I used to play violin and viola) and the flute part was thoroughly approved by the first performance soloist, Ingrid Culliford. By chance, a Swiss flautist planned three performances in Switzerland in 1996, but the performances were cancelled before rehearsals had even begun.
In Keith Potter's Musical Times June 1991 article about my String Quartet no.2 (see below) he wrote enthusiastically about the Flute Concerto "...a discourse brilliantly offsetting the chameleon-like solo flute against the glinting, corruscating surfaces of the strings."
Commissioned by New Macnaghten Concerts with funds provided by the Holst Foundation
Duration 24 minutes
Published by Schott
Recorded by the Bochmann Quartet on Metier Sound & Vision MSV CD 92016
A copy of the score is at The British Music Information Centre
Two audio extracts are available:
Extract 1 (Movement 2) - 527KB
Extract 2 (Movement 3) - 686KB
A "real and substantive connection with Mozart" was part of the commissioning detail for this work, one with which I am very satisfied. For further details of the Mozartian connections I can best direct you to Musical Times June 1991. Not an easy play (nor a comfortable listen) the Quartet has the distinction of sounding 'inevitable' - as the Bochmann's cellist said to me, "with your quartet we know immediately when we've gone wrong" (a comment which I took as a compliment).
"All three movements were packed with incident and harmonically rich, sometimes generating a Bartokian rhythmic energy."
Meirion Bowen - The Guardian
"Sackman ... has managed to work in allusions to Mozart with remarkable lack of posturing. Mostly one does not notice them, and when they do make their presence slyly felt, as in the inventive third movement, the effect is of gratifying surprise."
Paul Driver - The Sunday Times
Commissioned by the BBC for the 1993 Promenade Concerts
Duration 26 minutes
Published by Schott
Recorded by the BBC Symphony Orchestra/Davis on NMC 027
A copy of the score is at The British Music Information Centre
Two audio extracts are available:
Extract 1 (Movement 1) - 407KB;
Extract 2 (Movement 2) - 1353KB
My magnum opus. Just as Corranach was prompted by Smollett so Hawthorn was initiated by Glyn Hughes' novel The Hawthorn Goddess.
This piece will possibly always represent the best of me. Certainly the response of the critics (and, just as importantly, the BBC players) was uniformly enthusiastic. I will always be grateful to the BBC for commissioning the piece but I also regret the near-certainty that no other orchestra in this country can probably afford to mount the necessary rehearsals (or number of players) to perform the work again.
"...the argument snowballs to its expansively lyrical coda with an exhilaratingly unstoppable energy which one senses has been honestly earned."
Max Loppert - Financial Times
"shuddering rhythms, massive, swirling textures, fragmented phrases, and, yes, lyrical tunes, all mixed together in a maelstrom of colour."
Stephen Pettitt - The Times
"...makes perfect sense as an abstract structure - a fast-slow-fast plan which is cogently argued and generates vivid orchestral writing."
Andrew Clemants - The Guardian
"...there are long, sinuous melodies which worm their way out of the orchestral textures only to be overwhelmed again; massive, threatening climaxes and a central movement of delicately coloured washes."
Andrew Clemants - The Guardian (review of NMC recording)
"...a remarkably satisfying experience ... everything sounds right and the finely wrought textures are totally gripping ... this splendid score."
Paul Driver - The Sunday Times
Duration 11 minutes
Published by the composer
An audio extract is available:
Extract 1 5.3MB
An unashamedly minimalist composition which evokes the energy and power of the huge freight trains which cross America's bleak expanses. Enormous fun to perform, it makes its point and then stops (unlike the tedious elongation of some other works in this style).
First performance given by the Hertfordshire County Youth Orchestra, conducted by Peter Stark.
Duration 16 minutes
Published by the composer
A copy of the score is at The British Music Information Centre.
Two audio extracts are available:
Extract 1 (Dance 2) - 505KB;
Extract 2 (Dance 3) - 427KB
Commissioned for the Hertfordshire County Youth Orchestra (who specially recorded the work on CD - a copy of which is at the BMIC) this piece creates a two-way dialogue with a motet in praise of St. Cecilia by the 16th-century Flemish composer Nicolas Gombert. The players of the HCYO loved the piece, which was technically just challenging enough to make them feel the difficulties were worth overcoming - the musical results were definitely worth the effort. The piece is sufficiently convincing as a musical argument to make it performable by any fully professional orchestra - there is no sense that the music has been 'written down' for students.
See also Mosaic
Duration 13 minutes
Published by the composer
Recorded by Matthew Dickinson and Mervyn Cooke on the Metier label (released in 2005). MSV CD92049
An audio extract is available:
Extract 1 3.0MB
Like Night Train this piece was inspired by the example of a University of Nottingham Music Department percussionist, Matthew Dickinson, who gave the first performance. This piece attempts to make a convincing case for percussion being more than just the icing on the cake of an orchestra - it is as serious a piece of music as any sonata for violin and piano (and a lot more thrilling).
Folio I, Folio II and Folio III are published by the composer
Folio IV is published by Warwick Music
Each of the Folios contains six pieces and all were deliberately aimed at the teenage performer who needs music to stimulate his/her musicality (and especially his/her rhythmic security). Folio III has been performed by final-year flautists at the Nottingham University Music Department. The pianist is an equal participant in the musical argument (and also needs to be able to count!). I would humbly suggest that there is more valuable learning to be achieved from the pages of these compositions than in any number of Associated Board examination lists.
Duration 11 minutes
Published by the composer
A copy of the score is at The British Music Information Centre together with a synthesized recording.
An audio extract is available:
Extract - 576KB
This was my entry for the Composers' Competition which was an integral part of the 1999 Queen Elisabeth Piano Competition in Belgium. Apparently Caccia was one of the five concertos from which the winning entry was eventually chosen by the adjudicating panel. In just eleven minutes it says all that needs to be said in a piano concerto.
Published by Encore Publications
This slightly unconventional carol was commissioned for the December 1998 Nottingham University Carol Service. It mixes texts from The Coventry Carol, Tomorrow will be my dancing day and the Irish ballad She moved through the fair. Any choir which is tired of singing the predictable Christmas items might care to inspect this work.
Commissioned by Thames Valley University Centre for Research into Contemporary Music Practices
Duration 16 minutes
Published by Warwick Music
A copy of the score is at The British Music Information Centre
CD: Released on NMC D099 (March 2005). Reviewed in Gramophone January 2006
An audio extract is available:
Extract - 1.7MB (approx 7 minutes)
Commissioned for the pianist Philip Mead, the first performance was at the Royal Northern College of Music on March 15th 2000. Jim Gourlay (Head of Brass at the RNCM and the conductor of the first performance) has described the piece as "absolutely fantastic".
Commissioned by the Bern Flute Quartet (Switzerland)
Duration 12 minutes
Published by the composer
A copy of the score is at The British Music Information Centre
Recorded on the Metier label (released in 2005). MSV CD92049
Inspired by the painting entitled The Golden Fish by Paul Klee this work extracts as much expression and fluid agility out of the flute family as it is reasonable to expect. There are no multiphonics or key-slapping passages - just imaginative, intelligent writing for instruments whose greatest weakness, perhaps, is a lack of expressive 'depth'.
Commissioned by Jean-Luc Reichel and Swiss Winds
Duration 12 minutes
Published by the composer
Recorded for on the Metier label (released in 2005). MSV CD92049
An audio extract is available:
Extract - 419KB (approx 2 minutes)
Twelve minutes of musical fireworks, set in an uncomplicated style which is unlikely to cause any difficulties-of-acceptance with any audience. The first movement illuminates the different musical characteristics of the instruments whilst the second adopts a more languorous style (with faint echoes of Barber's Summer Music). The Scherzo third movement (Allegro giocoso) flies by in less than a minute (!) with swirling saxophone to the fore. The fourth pulls some of the earlier thematic ideas into shape, culminating in a particularly funky ending.
First performed by the Luxembourg Sinfonietta, April 2002.
Duration 14 minutes
Published by the composer
Eighty full-score pages of high-speed virtuosity - even the 'slow' movement has a metronome mark of crotchet equals 116! The Luxembourg players loved the piece, even if the first performance came close to falling off the rails on one occasion. I have never before composed for an accordion but Owen Murray (RAM) pronounced the part to be excellent. Pure excitement (without being trite or superficial).
Commissioned by and first performed by the Nottingham Youth Orchestra, NAYO Festival, Edinburgh, August 2002.
Duration 11 minutes
Published by the composer
An audio extract is available:
Extract 1 - 3.2MB
Eleven minutes of serious fun for every section of the orchestra (who will need to be able to count!). As with Cecilia dances this piece stretches the youth orchestra rather than being written-down to their age-range.
(Flute, Piccolo and Alto Flute)
First performed at Nottingham University (October 2002), then at the Royal College of Music and the Kings Lynn Music Festival.
Duration 11 minutes
Published by the composer
"Sackman packs a lot into 11 minutes - three linked movements that progress from skirling rhythmic unisons, through gentler, ruminative gestures broken by unexpected stops and starts, to a final moto perpetuo - and plenty of challenges for the instrumentalists"
Andrew Clements - The Guardian
Duration 10 minutes
Published by the composer
Recorded by Costas Fotopoulos on the Metier label (released in 2005). MSV CD92049
An audio extract is available:
Extract 1 - 1.4MB
The title refers not only to the physical movement of the pianist crossing his hands over as he jumps from one end of the keyboard to the other but also to the expressive aggression which slowly infiltrates the work. At the end of the piece the swirling cascades of notes spiral outwards leaving two widely-separated chords hanging in the air - only to be 'untimely ripped' in the final bar.
Commissioned by Drumstruck
Duration 10 minutes
First performance at Nottingham University, March 2004
Published by the composer
An audio extract is available:
Extract 1 - 904KB
Commissioned for Sinfonia ViVA
First performance at Nottingham University, September 2004
Published by the composer
Seven minutes of high-speed reflection on the last movement of Beethoven's Piano Concerto in B-flat. Just as Beethoven slides away from his rondo in order to include a deliciously syncopated section so Vivace slides away to include a brief tango!
Commissioned by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
First performance at the CBSO Centre, Birmingham, November 2007
Published by the composer
An audio extract is available:
Extract 1 - 3.2MB
The title has absolutely no connection, even allusional, with Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue; rather it is a simple reference to the printed reality of the music on the page and also my mental and emotional state at the time of the composition. The latter point sits oddly (as it often does with composers) against the unrestrained exuberance of the piece.
"The aural spectrum was sassy and often jazzy, with every instrument a virtuosic element in the fabric of the piece."
Rian Evans - The Guardian
Commissioned for the Rautio Trio with financial assistance from the Britten-Pears Foundation and the Vaughan Williams Trust.
First performance at Walthamstow village Church, March 2007
Published by the composer
An audio extract is available:
Extract 1 - 2.7MB
The stormy nature of the music is the absolute opposite of the cultured and sweetly soothing nature of Schubert's Trout Quintet. All five instruments in Before the rainbow are pushed towards the limits of their technical capabilities. At the end the music subsides and sinks into a dark chord-of-resolution; the rainbow has materialised but its appearance is ambiguous.
Duration 23 minutes
Published by the composer
An audio extract is available:
Extract 1 - 2.7MB
Composed for Ruth Palmer and in admiration of her uninhibited style of violin playing.