A colleague from Germany first made me aware of the term “ohrwurm”, (translated as “earworm” in English), to describe the situation in which you simply have a melody stuck in your head. At the time, it also seemed indicative of cultural differences, that such a term existed in German and, in the English language, we were reliant on an entire, un-formalised phrase to describe the phenomenon (this word has now been adopted more widely). This is something most people have experienced and can be particularly irritating. I experience this myself on an almost daily basis and find that it starts in a number of ways. It usually manifests itself by the repetition of a short phrase (10” or so), which your brain seems to forget increasingly until you seem unsure of whether you are actually hearing the original piece or not. It can be very vivid and to me, often sounds as if you are hearing music externally.

I liked the idea that the earworm is an actual living, breathing entity that needs to be fed and given what it wants (like some sort of musically-deranged tamagotchi) before it will shut up. I did not want this piece to be either a simple repetition of a phrase for 15 minutes, nor just an example of what happens when you get an earworm. I wanted it to encapsulate the frustration and irritation experienced, wanting the earworm to give you the rest of a work, rather than just 2 bar; or the annoyance of being unable to remember the rest of a melody, which can often transmogrify, rather cleverly, into another, completely different genre; I regularly have particularly incorrigible earworms that seamlessly move from a few bars of Bernstein’s Candide Overture into a hip-hop track (for example).

Commissioned by the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland; first performance Glasgow Royal Concert Hall; conducted by Nicolae Moldoveanu; 1st August, 2006.