|
|
|
Service |
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Four Seasons / Die vier Jahreszeiten (1995/2000) für Streichorchester
|
|
The title and concept of this work are clearly based on tradition. In contrast to Vivaldi's famous work which begins with spring, the order of the movements here is arranged to end on the uplifting thought of springtime and rebirth. Beginning with Summer, this somewhat slow and jazzy rendition was suggested to me by George Gershwin's "Summertime" from Porgy and Bess, a song that expresses very well the mood of the slow, hot summers of my childhood in Louisiana. The musical material is derived from the blues movement of "First Sonatina" for clarinet and piano that I composed in 1976. Autumn suggests the time of harvest and the barn dances that once followed a good yield of crops. It's a gigantic hoe-down with lots of fiddles of every size and the rustic sounds of open strings. Winter is constructed in a crystalline formation, like snowflakes. A short musical motive, which appears at times in retrograde, is employed throughout and is arranged in definite patterns reflecting internal symmetry. The rhythmically augmented and diminuted single motive is built on two triadic arpeggios derived from the whole-tone scales, thus all Major thirds. This causes a tonal restlessness resulting from lack of cadence. An unrelieved anticipation of something else to come is due to ceaseless repetition of its short single motive. I often feel a similar unrest when the cold, grey winter weather seems relentless and unending. Spring bursts forth in celebratory fashion with minimalist usage of repeating harmonies and intertwining melodic strands that expand and contract. From a small seed it blossoms. For the record, Winter is the shortest movement and Spring the longest, which is indeed how I would like my yearly weather cycle to be! Composed 1993 in
Königswinter |
|
