Pears on a Sill (2007)

Unlike most of my music, which is in one movement and relies on dramatic shape spinning out over many sections, each movement to Pears on a Sill is self-contained.  Contrast occurs, but often within the context of a more limited palette.  There is emphasis on recurrence – of opening ideas, distinct passages from other parts of a movement – in either unanticipated or open-ended ways.   Each part of the set is a character piece and, as such, evokes a particular mood.  To set a mood, most movements use rhythmic figures that recur throughout.  Here the challenge is to create flow and a sense of a process despite rhythmic consistency. The last and most rhythmically concise movement is, in fact, the most expansive and a fitting conclusion to the set.  While the titles of the individual movements are specific, the title as a whole hints at the idea of a collection of pieces set side by side.   Pears on a Sill was written for pianist Solungga Liu and is dedicated to a dear teacher and enduring friend, Anne Modugno.

A Seeker’s Song (2006)

In virtually all of my pieces, it is the sound and personality of an instrument (or combination of instruments) that inspires a piece.  As I gradually acquainted myself with it, the guitar revealed its searing, vulnerable beauty - a quality which totally enchanted me.  It is the guitar's inability to sustain, its particular six-string resonance, the method of plucking, and the special sound of turns or ornaments - due to the technique of hammer-ons and pull-offs, that I believe yields this beauty. Turns, in particular, enthralled me.  (There is simply nothing like that sound on any other instrument.)  They are central to the musical fabric of the piece, as both rhythmic and figurative elements.
 
 Although we are used to the guitar in highly amplified settings, in its untainted state the guitar seems to me to embody intimacy, both in its delicacy and in its quiet power.  And it is intimacy, mainly, that I explore in this piece - an exploration which unconsciously and naturally gave rise to an air of seeking.  Seeking is universal to humans, but how and why we seek is uniquely particular to each individual.  It is a personal process, intimate in the extreme.  "Song" in the title speaks to an overarching lyricism, a particular quality in the music, which is punctuated by impassioned cries and invocations that seem to spill out beyond its confines.
 
 I am profoundly indebted to Kenneth Meyer for his confidence in my creativity and his courage in commissioning new works for guitar.  I hope I have done justice to this trust and am grateful to have come to know this remarkable instrument.

À l’écoute (2005, rev.2009)

Two oboes and harpsichord brings to mind such a typically baroque formation (usually with a cello or bassoon laying down the bass line) that an immediate assumption would be that À l’écoute were some kind of neo-baroque concoction.  However, when being asked to write a work for two oboes for the 2005 Ostrava Oboe Festival in the Czech Republic, my choice of a harpsichord was motivated not because of its baroque past, but for its brittle, pungent sound.  It serves to contrast to the long, sinuous lines of the oboe.  In approaching this piece, the inspiration was specifically not to write a baroque-influenced piece, but to create a different sound world.  Rather than interweaving lines and counterpoint (as in the wondrous Trio Sonatas by the Czech baroque master Zelenka), in À l’écoute, the two oboes stand out as separate personalities.  Opening the work, the first oboe (Marlen Vavřikovà) betrays an insistent searching quality.  Embedded into its melodic line is a slow chromatic descent.  By contrast, the second oboe (Richard Killmer) has a quiet, confident lyricism.  The two oboes do not stay silent during each other’s solos.  Rather, the other oboist often plays in rhythmic unison with the upper line giving it an added dimension. Although this is really a story about the two oboes, the harpsichord has a very important secondary role.  It enlarges the sound palette and generates settings through which the oboes speak.

As the piece evolves, the intensity of the first oboe pervades various sections and the second oboe’s lyricism predominates in others.  They journey very closely together and journey far – from the vigorous rhythmic unison that has characterized certain passages to a section of great freedom where each player follows a different tempo (during the rapid, wave-like arpeggios of the harpsichord).  After reaching an impassioned oboe outpouring, the work suddenly descends – all players moving downward chromatically.  The following coda is a celebration of arrival. 

“À l’écoute”, a favorite phrase of my mother’s, means literally “at the listen”.  To be “à l’écoute” is to be attentive, aware, and poised – all in the moment.  This seemed appropriate both to the trajectory of the piece and the general atmosphere of quiet intensity that characterizes much of the work.

Madra’s Musings (2005)
à ma très chère Véronique
written for janus

Madra’s Musings is my attempt to explore ground similar to Debussy’s mesmerizing Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp. In this work, Debussy features the distinct timbres of each instrument, but also conjures up totally new sound worlds through his novel combinations.  Like the Debussy, in Madra’s Musings each instrument is given equal footing – no one member dominates.  The ensemble as a whole conveys a richly harmonic sound.  Beginning plaintively in the viola, the piece unfolds quietly and gives rise to moments of great lyricism leading to dramatic, forceful passages.  Although the form of the piece is fluid, there is, at times, the unexpected return to earlier sections.  The bird-like flute solo, which sounds so much like a jumping off point earlier in the work, becomes – surprisingly – its concluding material.

Fanfare to an Open Sky (2003)

Inspired by a performance of Dukas’s fanfare from La Peri, I decided to try my hand at one myself.  To me, the challenge of a fanfare is to keep it extroverted, but to make sure it has personality, for otherwise it just sounds like every other fanfare.  The Dukas fanfare as well as the fanfare from Janacek’s Sinfonietta are particularly impressive models in this regard.  They bear the imprint of their creators so fully and they are so different from each other. 

Since much of my music tends towards the introverted, I thought combining the extroverted nature of a fanfare with music of greater mystery would create an interesting tension that would give my own fanfare character.  Thus there are many contrasts between bold gestures and more lyrical, reflective moments ending, nevertheless, in a certain splendor befitting a fanfare.  I hoped the title, in its ambiguity, would be a way to refer to this tension.

Aria (2003)

Like an aria which serves as an emotional high point within a scene or act, so this aria functions.  Although wordless, the oboe sings a poignant, melancholic line grounded by the low tones of the cello.  The violin and viola provide motion and accompaniment creating tension against the melody above.  The second section is a vigorous, driving contrast, more contrapuntal and agitated than the lyrical first part.  Like the return of the A section in a baroque aria, the soloist (the oboe in this case) embellishes its melody the second time around.  In this aria, however, the embellishments give rise to a line which diverges significantly from the old one. Unlike its previous incarnation, the strings no longer provide motion but rich, lingering harmonies over which the oboe sings.  Movement will return as the aria expands beyond its expected boundaries.  The emotional intensity barely contained up to now and allowed a certain escape in the contrasting B section, now breaks forth with a long and furious oboe line propelling through an equally intense but more lyrical melody in the strings’ upper register.  Dying down, the aria revisits the cadential material of the first section, ending unresolved with the oboe alone.   

Love, Play On (2002)

Love, Play On is at its most basic a single-movement work: fast, slow, fast with a slow coda.  But this skeletal description has little to do with its very personal logic.  The work begins in movement, expanding out to a layered passage with flutes providing motion above, the trumpets singing a long melody in the middle and the low brass grounding the whole section in low, mainly major chords.  Sounding like a loving embrace, the fullness gradually thins to give way to the playfulness of staccato chords.  Here again, layers interact with each other, as they will throughout the work. Out of this texture will emerge chords in the winds leading to a more subdued but expressive passage.  Suddenly movement returns more playful than before with horn and winds frolicking in dialogue.  As if the energy could no longer be contained by this passage, the brass present a furious declamatory statement.  This bursts back into movement with many interacting layers leading to a climactic gesture with the trumpet soaring through.  Moving into calm, the music becomes more personal, achieving its moment of greatest intimacy with a quiet dialogue between two clarinets.  A brief allusion to the arpeggios of the beginning sets up a passage of sensual chords in the horns over which solos hang.  Slowly the music picks up its pace and becomes more playful again.  This energy leads to a great expansion of the opening embrace as the winds return to their arpeggios and four horns sing the trumpets beginning melody in unison.  We arrive at the point of greatest breadth and volume.  From this the motion diminishes quickly until we are left with only low brass chords. In a fitting final appearance these chords, which have provided a foundation for much of the piece, close the work with great serenity.

“Love” has been a word much degraded of late.  It has been brandied about carelessly.  So in choosing it as part of a title I had to be very careful. In this music, then, let’s think of love rather as a force, an energy.  It plays, winks and smiles.  It cries out.  It is ambiguous.  It envelops.  It is furious.  It is intimate and is also serene.  It is massive.  And it has great dimension. 

Pandora’s Beethoven-Box (2002)

Pandora's Beethoven-Box is not about Beethoven, nor is it a tribute to Beethoven.  It is simply a sound world infused with elements of Beethoven, elements which have been transformed to inhabit their new context.  For me, the thrill and challenge of this commission from The Phoenix Symphony for it’s 2001-2002 Beethoven Festival was to rework motives and gestures so that they would fit naturally, convincingly, into my own musical fabric.  Thus Beethoven is there only as a secondary elements, only an added layer of the piece.  It is not through a Beethoven quote (of which there are none) or through the recognition of a Beethoven reference (of which there are many) that the piece will suddenly yield its meaning.  It is only through the acceptance and understand of the piece’s own sound world that it may reveal itself.

Nevertheless, identifying a “moment of Beethoven” might provide an entryway for the listener.  A hint: it is almost exclusively the first, second and fourth movements of Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony that make their appearance in this work.  On a larger scale, it is my particular fondness for the quirkiness of the Eighth Symphony that inspired my own piece. Pandora’s Beethoven-Box is full of stops and starts – not like a machine, but very human stops and starts of disquiet, hesitation, surprise, intensity.  It plays with time ­ moving forward, slowing, languishing, racing.  And its contrasting gestures surprise by their sudden appearance next to each other.  It is this aspect of the piece that suggested the title, for I saw Pandora open the box and unleash the materials of the piece, including Beethovenian elements, materials which are distinct in and of themselves, but placed together form a larger whole.

Lover Calls (2001)

Attracted to the inherent sensuality of several cellos playing together and the fine musicianship of the performers, I was thrilled to write Lover Calls for Florent Renard-Payen and the Tarab Cello Ensemble.  Although the composition of the piece took a particularly long time, with many soujourns in the quiet of Connecticut to stimulate the process, the piece itself has a tight, confident character, rising from a quiet, sensual beginning and falling back again from a more buoyant middle.  Each particular passage, as it were, yearns and calls out in a different manner, sometimes delicately, sometimes playfully, sometime tinged with melancholy.  In Lover Calls, the body of cellos must play as one entity, reflecting, perhaps, a view primarily from a single source as in a first-person narration.  By using the word narration, I do not mean to suggest a story line, for the music evokes rather than consciously depicts.            

Evocations of an Earthly Nature (2000)

As defined by the American Heritage Dictionary, to evoke is “to draw forth or bring out something latent, hidden or unexpressed,” a description that closely resembles my musical aspirations.  I am most attracted to the mysterious and ambiguous in music, for it draws us closest to the inexpressible.  The ability to change emotional perspective with a flick of the wrist, the richness of musical content where juxtapositions can tell several stories at a time and both comment on its parts and create a larger world simultaneously, these are some of the things I most cherish.  Music penetrates beyond our concrete reality into other realities.

In Evocations of an Earthly Nature, as well as my music in general, I strive, above all for a satisfying emotional shape.  To me, such a shape is satisfying not because it has a clear structure or predictable series of events, but precisely because it is surprising, unexpected, yet unfolds in a mysteriously elegant way.  The music is not so much telling us a story as telling us a story about itself, and in so doing evokes places we rarely inhabit on a daily level. 

The piece is divided into two movements, which last about seven minutes each. The first, Spirited, sometimes playful, aggressive, sardonic, sometimes tinged with melancholy, closing lyrically, or does it?  The second movement, Contemplative, balances out the first.  Unlike its rhythmically driven predecessor, it is essentially a series of long lines given dimension by the fabric through which they flow. In evoking – “bringing out something latent, hidden, or unexpressed” – I have ventured to engage “other realities” as I have described them.  Yet as my title suggests, I attempt to call forth what is always in front of us.  Evocations of an Earthly Nature, our ultimate reality which we too often forget, but a reality we can return to in embracing mystery and nuance.  Would only that my work could serve, in some way, as a humble vehicle to that end.

Afterglow of a Kiss (2000)

A flitting scherzando grounded and darkened by low chords, breathlessness behind the ticking of clocks, a transformation into greater exuberance finally relaxing into sensuous calm.  Perhaps an emotional trajectory provoked by an initial kiss?  Or else varying responses set side by side?  Either way, the music remains brief and everchanging, fluid and impalpable. 

That I have written music in the form of a short concerto for flute and small orchestra is due entirely to the artistry of Alyce Johnson to whom I am very grateful.  Without her musicianship as an inspiration, this piece would not have been written.

Recitative to an Absent Sky (1999)

Recitative to an Absent Sky is a dramatic monologue for solo cello, impassioned and emotionally fluid like its often highly charged operatic counterpart.  Beginning in a state of restless agitation, the piece gains increasing lyricism, and subsides into a desolate quiet.  Yet it explores many different emotional territories along the way.  A substantial challenge to the cellist, he must articulate the work’s dramatic shape while executing passages of formidable virtuosity.  Recitative to an Absent Sky was written for and is dedicated with affection to Florent Renard-Payen. 

A Spell of Myriad Dances (1999)

Although the title A Spell of Myriad Dances evokes many extramusical associations, the works itself stems from a purely musical impulse, the opening gesture:  austere, unadorned chords that repeat to form a pulse.  This pulse suggested potential; hidden energy contained in its quiet, steady insistence.  So it became the foundation for the expansions and contractions of over the piece’s fourteen-minute span and also became a point of reference for the changing rhythmic underpinnings of each breath of music. 

Because of its primary focus on rhythm and pulse, the piece is essentially about motion, given shape and dimension through orchestral color and harmony.  What arises are layers of dance, energetic passages out of which melodic lines blossom, punctuations that shift the music’s direction.  As in any living being, these elements do not exist separately from one another, but only accentuate certain features of the entity as different facets become apparent.  Thus the title should not imply a suite of dances, but rather one long breath of dance. 

Trio & Consort (1999)

Trio & Consort for English horn, two oboe soloists, a choir of five oboes and percussion was expressly written for Richard Killmer, Anna Hendrickson, Andrea Gross and members of Prof. Killmer’s studio.  It had its premiere at the 1999 International Double Reed Society Conference in Madison, WI in August 1999.  The interaction of various layers in the ensemble – the English horn and the two oboe soloists, the trio and the consort, the consort and the percussion – as well as their physical placement on the stage makes this an inherently theatrical piece.  It is the English horn, the provocateur extraordinaire of the ensemble, which essentially guides the process of the musical drama. 

Sculpted Memory (1998)
           
Although our hearing of music is completely dependent on its unfolding in time, music has a mysterious power to subvert time – seeming to languish in places and press forward in others, not submitting to time as we know it in our daily lives.  It is perhaps this quality which allowed me to capture lingering images and emotions around Christine Mirzayan, in whose memory this piece was written.  Unlike prose, music doesn’t have to function as a narrative.   Therefore, I have been able to probe different layers, sometimes simultaneously or in succession, as one atmosphere melts into the other.  In so doing, I hope I have done Christine justice.  

The first part of the piece sets the stage for our hearing and ends with a loud, impassioned passage.  What follows is a long melodic line that passes through spaces created by the rest of the orchestra.  Having finished weaving through various feelings and images, the music moves on into the final section, which functions like an epilogue.  Solos by the flügelhorn and the oboe occur over a very slow moving series of chords.  This chordal progression gains a shape of its own and closes the piece.

Quatre Aperçus (1998)

A setting of Rainer Maria Rilke’s lesser-known French poetry, these four songs were written expressly for pianist David Riley.  The intimacy and profound soulfulness of the texts I found particularly resonant and hope that I have done justice, through the medium of music, to their expressive nature.  The first and fourth songs stand separately, but the energy of the second falls into the third.  By having placed the songs in this order, I strove to attend not only to the dramatic shape of each individual song, but to the dramatic shape of the song cycle as a whole.  The first three songs are dedicated to dear friends and their new spouses and the fourth is dedicated to my sister.  The title may be translated as “Four Glimpses”.

Empress (1998)

I completed Empress in June 1998, having started it in February.  Beginning in quiet serenity and ending vigorously, the piece’s musical materials change gradually over its twelve-minute time span, never returning to their earlier form.  Thus process – gradual transformation – is at its core, taking the listener on a journey through ever-changing emotional landscapes.  As in much of my work, in Empress I feature the woodwinds most prominently.  I was also conscious of including the harp as an equal partner in the musical tapestry, instead of relegating it to a secondary role.  The piece is dedicated to Angela Wellman, the empress of the title.

But the Stars Are Slower Still (1997)

Rainer Maria Rilke’s short, but eloquent poem Enterrement, originally written in French, provides the emotional and structural impetus for But the Stars Are Slower Still.  Rilke presents three different speeds in his poem:  the rapid, aggressive machines; the slow gait of a funeral, and the great cosmic pace of the stars.  My composition is divided accordingly, with three sections of approximately five minutes each.  The first is marked Vivace and begins with a strong, descending gesture whose repetition helps delineate the movement’s four shorter sections.  These briefer parts are characterized as follows:  first, the insistent bass drum and the chords in the strings; second, the fluctuation rhythms and predominance of the woodwinds; third, the accented quarter notes of the strings and an imitative idea that develops through the orchestra; and fourth, an explosive climax that arises from the juxtaposition of the elements introduced above.

Aggressively bustling at the pace of the late twentieth century, I have tried to recreate the “rapacious and annoyed” machines as Rilke describes them.  They are subverted at their point of highest energy by the sweet tones of four cellos.  The fury of the machines – burnt out – is replaced by the quiet introspection of the funeral which passes through it.  This begins the second section, marked Lento.  Instead of anything marchlike, the second movement presents two chordal ideas interspersed with solo melodies.  The four cellos introduce the first idea, high in register and alternating three harmonies, and the low winds contrast the opening material with their dark, slowly rising chords.  After the bassoon and alto flute solos, the two ideas are placed on top of each other and repeat once as the movement reaches its most expansive point. 

The music of But the Stars Are Slower Still, so far, presented the agitated movement of the first section, with its quick harmonic rhythm, and the quiet sparseness of the second part, both of which are based on a chordal texture.  Although the harmonic motion of the second movement is greatly slowed in comparison to the first, the third and final section – representing the stars – presents harmonies at their most unhurried. 

While the twelve harmonies that underpin this final section sometimes resonate for thirty seconds at a time, there is motion – short motives and long phrases that permeate the texture.  They move about intuitively and ebb and flow, in a largely linear way.  Thus, despite its unworldly pace, the music manifests a fullness worthy of the stars.  Perhaps it gives the sense of entering a new realm, a realm to contrast the chaotic atmosphere of our time.

Souffle et Contresouffle (1996)

A great challenge both musically and technically for the pianist, Souffle et Contresouffle presents two contrasting worlds – the driving, dramatic quality of the opening and the broad and multi-layered texture of the central section which includes a low gong-like chord, a long, slowly evolving melodic line in the mid-range of the piano, and the sometimes poignant, playful, or aggressive interjections above.  The title, roughly translated as “breath and counterbreath”, makes allusion to the emotional tension created by the abrupt shifts or juxtapositions of moods throughout the piece.  This is intended to be felt both from moment to moment as well as in the overarching A-B-A form.  I am deeply grateful to pianist Stephen Perry for providing the impetus for the creation of this work.

Pavane en forme de voûte (1996)

Pavane en forme de voûte (pavane in the form of an arch) despite a sometimes brooding quality, never strays far from its initial calm, lush, somewhat contemplative mood.  It breaks out into a climactic passage only before the return of the sensual, pavane-like opening.  The linear development implied by the progression to a climax is frame within a larger arch form, as implied by the title, whose metaphoric cornerstone occurs when the oboe rises from the bottom to the top of its range over a homophonic string texture. Written for Anna Hendrickson, the oboe part typifies the character of the soloist, sometimes acquiescing to, sometimes fighting against, and sometimes propelling forward the musical material.