Instrumentation: flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin, cello
First Performance: Premiered by the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Sydney Hodkinson conducting, 13 July, 2006.
Duration: 7 minutes
Audio with scrolling score, performed by Ensemble Interface, conducted by Scott Voyles
As with many of my titles, Enjamb, Infuse, Implode came as an afterthought. I chose this particular combination of verbs to describe certain actions occurring throughout the piece. The long, sweeping, lyrical lines - the first of which is introduced in the opening as a piano solo - expand and contract persistently, despite different musical undercurrents. These long, arching "melodies" are set in motion to gradually shifting harmonies that either propel them forward or resist against them. The resulting moments of heightened tension were for me like carefully placed line breaks in an otherwise continuous musical thought, thus the analogy to enjambment. At other times, melody and harmony become one, or infuse together. The infusion idea also relates to the blending of instruments in different ways for coloristic purposes. And finally, there
are moments where the music implodes, either from opposing forces, or from the accumulation of "infused" elements collapsing inwards. The form can be likened to three stanzas of flexible length with a coda, or in this case, a contrasting envoi.
Anthony Cheung
July 2006