Symphony No. 6

I have often reflected on the decision by Edward Elgar to create character portraits of “his friends pictured within” in his Enigma Variations where each of the movements is a musical sketch of his various friends, including his wife Alice, and dedicated to each of them individually. I’ve always enjoyed doing similar things in some of my shorter chamber works - For Max, For Michael, For Sally, Chant for John and so on.

There is something of this going on in my sixth symphony. Although it is an abstract work there is a sequence of secret portraits in the form of four short miniatures which get the symphony underway, and which culminate in a fifth and much more substantial movement. The first miniature is for woodwind alone, the second for percussion, timpani and piano, the third for brass alone and the fourth for strings and harp, and each privately commemorates (and mourns) four close family members who were hugely impactful on my life before they died.

The first of these aphoristic portraits presents a reflective melody lying low on the flutes and eventually highlights the alto flute. The second is also quite tentative but faster and more elusive. The brass movement is faster again but always muted and seemingly away in the distance; and the movement for strings gives prominence to the cellos, starting low, rising high and falling back down again.

The bigger fifth movement brings the whole orchestra together and is much more through-composed and developed, covering a wide range of moods, textures and tempi. There are spectral memories of the four opening miniatures throughout but the music now seems much more emphatic and expressive. A solo cello emerges as a prominent protagonist after the climaxes and we are taken through a quick retrograde reprise of the separate orchestral sections with which the symphony got underway.

The alto flute (which featured at the beginning of the symphony) now returns in a much more melancholic guise accompanied by solemn low chords on muted strings before a final relentless crescendo and a faltering fade-out.

James MacMillan, 2026

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