Instrumentation: flute/alto flute, oboe, clarinet/bass clarinet, alto sax, horn, harp, percussion (2 players), piano, 2 violins, viola, cello
First Performance: First performance on 6 December 2019, by the Grossman Ensemble, conducted by Michael Lewanski, at the Logan Performance Hall, Chicago
Commissioned by the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition at the University of Chicago. Dedicated to Joseph Koerner and the musicians of the Grossman Ensemble.
Duration: 15 minutes
Complete performance by the Grossman Ensemble, conducted by Michael Lewanski (released on Fountain of Time), featured by Score Follower.
Excerpt from Movement 2, "...of solitude/winter," from the premiere.
The various allegories depicted here are common themes throughout the history of art: the senses, the elements, the seasons, affects, etc. Some of my own favorite visual representations occupied my thoughts, e.g. the “Lady and the Unicorn” tapestries from Flanders (c. 1500) and Jan Brueghel's and Rubens’ The Five Senses, especially in their ability to convey cross-sensory experience and transference, and in their awakening and stimulation of the tactile in spite of two-dimensional visual surfaces. The first section of the piece (“…of touch/heat”) thus opens with a sensation of touch traded off between unrelated instruments, each action resulting in something malleable and elastic. In our own touch-sensitive age of haptics, the screens and sensors we interact with are similarly reactive and increasingly adaptable, despite their hard or invisible surfaces. I wanted to play with this sensation of action/reaction, plasticity and tactility in the materials, bouncing off and between various instruments. I imagined heat and sparks being set off by these interactions as well, raising the temperature on the overall activity.
“…of solitude/winter” turns more towards existing tropes, with western music history being replete with sonic signifiers and allegories of both themes. Passing historical references – some familiar and others disguised – dot a frigid and desolate landscape in a minor/modal key (D) that overwhelmingly connotes such depictions. An inner storm turns outwards and turbulent, and in the aftermath, the final section (“…of breath/air”) begins without pause. Eventually each phrase occurs as a single, delicate breath, chosen without a pre-determined order by the conductor, while a sax/harp duo breathes as one continuous undercurrent.
Anthony Cheung