The composer admits to an obsession with the passage of time in his latest work for the West Australian Symphony Orchestra.

World premiere

Work Simpler Times
Composer James Ledger
Scored for Symphony orchestra, piano and toy piano
Commissioned for West Australian Symphony Orchestra
Premiere September 4, Perth Concert Hall
Performers West Australian SO, Asher Fisch

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I have an almost obsessive preoccupation with the passing of time. We all experience the seemingly exponential speeding up of time as we get older. The often heard phrases “time flies” and “where does the time go?” are just two ubiquitous examples in modern vernacular that attest to this. My new orchestral work, Simpler Times, is an attempt to mirror the passing of time as it speeds up incrementally over its 30-minute span.

The work falls into seven sections, the tempo of each section relating to the previous section by means of a simple set of ratios. For example, the tempo relationship between the first two sections is 7:8, then 6:7 between the second and third sections, and so on. By the arrival of the final...