Pacific Hockets

Pacific Hockets (1991) stands out as one of Elmsly’s most important large-scale works from his career of over 35 years. It contains a number of intriguing compositional devices that feature in much of his output. In this work Elmsly combines hocketing with minimalist additive and reductive processes, which creates a wide range of orchestral timbre. It is a fascinating work to study for the way in which he uses repetition and a variety of evolving rhythmic frameworks to develop the music in each of the three contrasting movements.