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| 2016/07/30 06:50:19瀏覽158｜回應0｜推薦0 | |
| Sowash: "Couple in a Victorian Garden" from my Cape May Suite, for oboe and violin One of the things that makes so-called “classical” music different from other kinds of music is that it often comes in movements. [ “Movements? He’s going to yammer on about movements when the Nation is wrenched with grisly news of murder and mayhem and the vitally important issues of racism and the containment of violence demand our attention?” Yes, I am. Why? Because one appropriate and healthy way of responding to horror, racism and violence is to affirm the value of the good things we all cherish — among which are music, friendship and community. ] A movement is a section of a larger work. A short silence separates it from preceding and following movements. A movement is a completed expression and can stand alone. But the logic of its existence is stronger when it is heard in its place, among the other movements in the larger work of which it is a part. Many of the pieces featured in these weekly emails are “movements” -- stand-alone sections of larger works that consist of multiple movements. The sequence of movements in a multi-movement work is not random. The order of the movements is devised to provide contrasts in tempo and character as the listener journeys through the entire work. For example, the first movement of a concerto is usually moderately fast and expansive in character; the second movement is usually slow, sensitive, introspective; the third movement is usually fast and rousing, a shameless bid for a big round of applause after the last note is sounded. The differing character of the movements is not random either. The movements must be diverse, but not too diverse. Unless the composer is going for humor or irony, a funeral march ought not to be followed by a polka. Different as the movements may be from one another, they still need to be in some way unified. Composers are fascinated by things like this. But I have noticed the eyes of non-composers glazing over pretty quickly when the conversation turns to musical structure. People need a metaphor to which they can relate. Understandable! Here’s one: think of a multi-movement piece of music as a series of related paintings by the same artist, displayed together. The wall space between the paintings corresponds to the brief silences between the movements. If you’ve hung paintings, you know that there is an art to it. It’s a tricky business, balancing several paintings so as to please the eye. There is a mysterious tension between the paintings, arising from their size and content. It’s the same with movements. Composing is not only a matter of coming up with good tunes. Songwriters do that and hats off to them. But composers are concerned with the ways in which music compels and rewards careful listening over an extended period of time. That is achieved partly through the distribution of contrasting movements. There are four movements in my Cape May Suite for oboe, violin, cello and piano. The first and last, entitled “Morning at Seaside” and “Ghostly Waltzes at Congress Hall,” are long, about eight minutes, and scored for all four instruments. The music in those movements has an expansive, public character. By contrast the two inner movements, entitled “Dinner at Louisa’s” and “Couple in a Victorian Garden,” are short, two or three minutes long. Both are scored for just two instruments and have a quiet, private character. “Dinner at Louisa’s,” depicting a couple dining in a small, intimate restaurant, is scored for cello and piano. “Couple in a Victorian Garden” is scored for the other two instruments: oboe and violin. Returning to the analogy of paintings on a wall, the outer movements are like two large paintings while the inner movements are like two small paintings. Think how you might arrange two large paintings and two small paintings, hanging all four on the same wall. That was part of what I was thinking about when I assembled my Cape May Suite. For some reason, our daughter, Shenandoah, who was 11 years old when I wrote this music, was captivated by the “Couple in a Victorian Garden” movement. She listened to the recording of it many times and often told me, “Papa, that is the most beautiful music you ever wrote.” Mind you, at that time she had heard relatively few of my 400 works but she was, typically for her, completely confident in making this pronouncement. That’s our girl! See what you think. To hear "Couple in a Victorian Garden" from my Cape May Suite played by oboist Robert Franz and violinist Brendan Christensen, click here: http://www.sowash.com/ To see a PDF of the score, click here: http://www.sowash.com/ |
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