Tarka

1988 Release Details        1996 Re-issue Details        Track Listing       Credits        Sleeve Notes

Original UK release details

LP

CD

Single released from this album

7" single: The Anthem From Tarka (single mix) / The Rising Spring

CD single:

The Anthem From Tarka (single mix) / The Rising Spring / Excerpt From Tarka, Movement 1, Part 1 / Excerpt From Tarka, Movement 3  / The Anthem From Tarka (single mix extended version) 

1996 Blueprint UK CD re-issue

The Blueprint CD release has a totally new cover and also includes The Rising Spring as part of Movement 2. Movement 2 on the Blueprint CD has a running time of 16:20. It also details for the first time the titles of all the individual sections of the three Movements.

Track Listing

Movement 1 - The First Year (11:24) 

Owlery Holt - Weare Water - Golden Pool - Moon Play - Corncrake Meadow - Root Walk

Movement 2  - River and Estuary (16:20) 

Moonfield - Waymoor - The Estuary - Salmon Hunting - Moonfield - The Burrows - Bag Leap

Movement 3 - The Hunt (15:23)

The Foreboding - Dark Hams Wood - Pool of the Six Herons - Escape to the Estuary - Beam Weir - Deadlock - The Kelp Pool - Island Run - Ebb Tide

The Anthem (6:04)

Composed by Anthony Phillips and Harry Williamson, 

except The Anthem composed by Anthony Phillips and Simon Heyworth

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Credits

Anthony Phillips: Acoustic Guitars, Keyboards

Harry Williamson: Acoustic Guitars, Keyboards

Krysia Osostowicz: Violin

Ann Morfee: Violin

Janet Crouch: Cello

Anne Glover: Oboe

Ian Hardwick: Oboe

Lindsay Cooper: Bassoon

Nick Cox: Clarinet, Bass Clarinet

Andrew Anscombe: French Horn

Didier Malherbe: Flute, Piccolo, Soprano Saxophone

Julie Allis: Harp

Guy Evans & Dave Sawyer: Percussion

The National Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Jeremy Gilbert

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Sleeve Notes

These are producer Simon Heyworth's original sleeve notes which were included on the original 1988 release:

The acoustic guitar has always been a bridge between the tradition of English folk music and the classical and rock music disciplines.  Throughout Europe there has been a tradition of using folk music melodies as the basis of major classical works.

TARKA, as both an evolution and as a piece of music, is broad-based enough to show off much of the above.  During the time in which the work developed it came to represent (if one may draw a phrase from the world of art) a work in progress.  To a large extent the process still continues as far as the main participants in the project are concerned.

Other works will follow, some with their roots as far if not even further back as the present piece.  Indeed, this is the right moment for this current work to appear.

This is not an unusual process for the painter or sculptor and much of what we see in TARKA, although we experience it through sound, is inspired by places that can be as readily seen as imagined.

Simon Heyworth, Producer
1988, England

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