Partita

'I responded to this exciting but rather daunting commission by writing a very lively and I hope very accessible piece, which, I decided before I started composing, should be full of tunes. I wrote it in memory of my dear friend Sheila MacCrindle, who died in 1993... although this Partita is in her memory, it never occurred to me to make it gloomy or dirge-like; that is not how I remember her.' Richard Rodney Bennett. Partita for Orchestra, by Richard Rodney Bennett , was commissioned by British Telecommunications plc in co-operation with the Association of British Orchestras, to be performed by seventeen different orchestras between October 1995 and July 1996. Duration: c.17mins.