Lisa Robertson: the inimitable brightness of the air

'...the world all shut out… unchanged by any of man's doings…It was older than man; it was found so by incoming Celts and seafaring Norsemen and Columba's priests... the inimitable seaside brightness of the air, the brine and the iodine, the lap of the billows… all that I saw and felt my predecessors must have seen and felt with scarce a difference. I steeped myself in open air and in past ages.' - R L Stevenson, 1887 The piece was inspired by R L Stevenson’s impressions of the island of Erraid’s extraordinary ‘seascape’ with endless Atlantic skies, wind and the sea hitting the senses and strikingly bright air. The piece contrasts this description with the current issue of increasing pollution. I turn the feeling of breathing in a rush of fresh sea air into a musical feature. Gradually, the length of the ‘breaths’ decreases, like a person increasingly struggling and gasping for breath. Note by Lisa Robertson Recorded live at LSO St Luke's on Saturday 10 January 2026. Daniel Shao flute Chihiro Ono viola Valerie Welbanks cello #LondonSymphonyOrchestra #ContemporaryMusic #ChamberMusic ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subscribe to the LSO's channel: http://bit.ly/LSOsubscribe Subscribe to LSO newsletter: https://smarturl.it/lsonewsletter Follow the LSO on: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/londonsymphonyorchestra Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/londonsymphonyorchestra TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@londonsymphonyorchestra Twitter: https://twitter.com/londonsymphony LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/london-symphony-orchestra/ Website: https://lso.co.uk/ Apple Music: http://geni.us/yH0sXY Spotify: http://spoti.fi/291cCk0 LSO Live: https://lsolive.lso.co.uk/