Cameron Biles-Liddell’s new harp concerto Nature’s Dance: an entertaining and polished affair.
Nature’s Dance, premiered by the BBC NOW with soloist Alis Huws (and available on BBC Sounds until the end of October 2026), is strong on story, rich in orchestration, and an entertaining listen too.
Biles-Liddell treats the harp as the persistent voice in the story, the character the listener keeps returning to. Its percussive timbre is unmistakable, drawing us if not alongside the line then behind it. Shrewd decision-making.
The first half of the first movement pitches a Middle Eastern modality onto the score of a multi-episodic fantasy epic. Westeros cast further east, there’s also a nod to starfields in distant galaxies, opening crawls with bold yellow typefaces, and vanishing points. This is more synthesis, not imitation nor derivation.
The composer’s own “industrial scherzo” concludes the first movement. It has a gratifying pulsating quality to it. It grabs attention without overegging the pudding. There’s peril. Something is at stake. The concluding stabs from the orchestra have a “told you so” feel to them.
The grand orchestral soundscape that the second-half material builds to veers momentarily into a melancholy a little too reminiscent of my own internal teenage TV autobiography. That aside, the score claws back the emotional weight with a deftly placed and efficient cello solo, and a slide in the brass that draws a well-deserved gasp.
The second cadenza before the concluding allegro sees something both miraculous and fragile. Comforting. Necessary.
Nature’s Dance is an impressively cohesive work — a consistently rewarding treat for imaginative minds. A harmonic language that appears to consolidate the work of those who have been the most lasting and popular presences in film, TV and the concert hall. There are hints of Arnold, Walton, and Williams that tickle and caress. Still, Biles-Liddell makes it his own.
If it’s not already programmed for the Proms, it should be — the kind of work after which most would leave the auditorium nodding with unexpected satisfaction as they shuffled off to the bar.
Cameron Biles-Liddell’s ‘Nature’s Dance’ is available on BBC Sounds until the end of October 2026
