Threshold
for Chamber Ensemble and Electronic Soundscape
Duration: 14' 30"
Chamber Ensemble: Soprano Saxophone, English Horn, Viola, Piano, 2 Percussion
Electronic Soundscape performed from CD tracks
Threshold (1983) is a composition for chamber ensemble and computer-generated tape, based on a short segment of text taken from the Lewis Carroll story, Alice in Wonderland, entitled Hallway of Doors by the composer. Below is a portion of the text by Carroll that formed the basis for the composition:
Alice found herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof. There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when Alice had been all the way down the one side and up the other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to get out again.
The Hill has Something to Say
for Soprano, Piano and Amphora
Duration: 6"15"
The Hill has Something to Say is a composition for Soprano, Piano and Amphora, created originally for soprano Renee Fleming in 1999. The concept and sound for the amphora was inspired by and is based on the following portion of Rita Dove’s poem:
Instead the valley groans as the wind,
Amphoric, …
The amphora sound is a full-bodied, breathy, resonant, pure bottle tone, like the whistling of the wind surrounding and embracing the hill, heard as if one could quiet the outside world and internal turmoil long enough to really listen to its ebb and flow. Its sound originates in long blown bottle tones, thrust into an ever moving, ever breathing exchange with the piano, over which the voice finds expression in the poetic circumspection of life as viewed through the lens of this slowed state of being. The amphora soundscape is performed from CD tracks.
The Hill Has Something to Say is underwritten by the American Composers Forum, with funds provided by the Jerome Foundation, and by the Hanson Institute for American Music. The work had its premiere in Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City.
The following is the poem by Rita Dove:
The Hill Has Something to Say|
but isn't talking.
Instead the valley groans as the wind,
amphoric,
hoots its one bad note.
Halfway up, we stop to peek
through smudged pine: this is Europe
and its green terraces.
~
and takes its time.
What's left to climb's inside us,
earth rising, stupified.
~
: it's not all in the books
(but maps don't lie).
The hill has a right
to stand here, one knob
in the coiled spine of a peasant
who, forgetting to flee, simply
lay down forever.
~
bootstrap and spur
harrow, and pitchfork
a bugle a sandal
clay head of a pipe
~
(For all we know
the wind's inside us, pacing
our lungs. For all we know
it's spring and the ground
moistens as raped maids break
to blossom. What's invisible
sings, and we bear witness.)
~
if we would listen! Underfoot
slow weight, Scavenger Time,
and the little old woman
who lives there still.
The Red Shoes Fairy Tale
for Violin and Piano
Duration: 11' 35”
“The Red Shoes Fairy Tale” is an excerpt from The Red Shoes Ballet created in 2001 for the Minneapolis-based dance theater company Ballet of the Dolls. The Ballet is based on the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, which was incorporated into a movie directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger in 1948. The Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale is based on a young girl’s love of dance, and her coming upon a magic pair of dance shoes, which take control over her. She continues to dance until exhaustion, and can only stop when her feet are chopped off.
The Red Shoes movie incorporated the fairy tale as a story within a story. An authoritarian ballet impresario Boris Lermontov rules over his protégés, demanding complete submission to his demands, which include not allowing personal relationships to interfere with their art. He brings a new dancer, Victoria Paige, into the company, and cultivates her to play the leading role in their new ballet, The Red Shoes, composed by the company’s resident composer, Julian Craster. Victoria falls in love with Julian, creating a conflict of tragic proportions with Lermontov. Victoria’s internal conflict between her passion for dance and her love for Julian lead her to commit suicide.
