Piers Hellawell

Copicornua

Copicornua is a contemporary solo work for French Horn written for Royal Academy of Music's bicentennial. To enshrine the Royal Academy's 200th landmark within the music fabric, this piece makes use of the Roman numeral form of 200 - 'CC' - via a recurrent motif of two high Cs: one is standard, the other raised by a quarter-tone. This motif, a 'public monument' in the landscape, stands between an upward-thrusting line that climbs through the horn's registers, and a contrastingly deflationary descending motif. A third idea then strides upwards from the low register; however, the CC motif gradually asserts its dominance over the landscape. The title, a play on the mythological 'horn of plenty' (cornucopia), doubles as a reference to the incredible riches that RAM continues to offer our musical life - while a third aspect of 'Copicornua' is those paired 'C's, representing the RAM's Anniversary: 200.