The Three Pieces for Polly, written for Polly Hoskins, offers an intriguing insight into Ritchie's musical style from the altitude of a child beginning to play. Together they present a sunny idyll - a simple start on open strings followed by a siciliana and a courtly dance.
These pieces were completed in January 2004 for a young friend of mine who, for all I knew, may have been at the outset of a career as a violinist. My thought was to create steps along the way in roughly two-year spans.
The first piece required simple bowing, only the first finger on the strings, if at all, and response to regular phrasing.
The second, in a slow 6/8, calls for an understanding of five bar phrases (2+3) and one bar of cross-rhythms. A strong sense of rhythmic control is called for and a feeling for atmosphere. The basic theme is modal (Aeolian).
The third movement, Allegretto, with its tricky introduction, has the makings of a larger ternary-structured piece. Cross-rhythms and rhythmic contradictions have to be negotiated as do the simpler phrases of the calm middle section. It is altogether more demanding than its predecessors in fingering, bowing, phrasing and control. The piano part is an integral part of each piece. Not only support is provided but also its contribution is of equal importance especially to the ears and mind of the violinist being accompanied.
I thought of this trio of pieces in terms of a nine-year-old at the beginning and 13 at the end. This is not to imply it is the sole diet – much more music and scales and bowing exercises are all part of the deal which any serious music-maker enters into.
