There Came A Glance From Igor (Woodwind Trio)

 

I wrote There Came A Glance From Igor (wind trio: flute, oboe, bassoon) mainly as a tribute to Stravinsky, who helped me (along with Charles Ives and Sebastian Bach) to stretch my youthful ears.
mm
Connect your device to a decent sound system or enclosed headphones, and click the orange PLAY button...


mm
Alternatively, you could listen to the music at its URL:
http://soundcloud.com/peter-gore-symes/there-came-a-glance-from-igor
mm
If you wish, you can read the score (as a pdf file) here. This link will open in a new window so you can scroll thru the score as the music plays. Both the score and the mp3 recording are free and downloadable.
mm
Ralph Vaughn-Williams provided the wonderful melody ("Linden Lea") which forms the backbone of the Trio, but it is to Stravinsky that I owe most debt. Like Stravinsky, I enjoy woodwinds: their individual "enameled" timbres ensure linear clarity in a self- consciously polyphonic texture, and therefore militate against the sometimes cloyingly sentimental harmonic blend of strings so tiresomely favoured by 19th century Romantics. Stravinsky ("Counterpoint is my natural home") also loved the music of Bach: his Dumbarton Oaks Concerto was a clear neo-Baroque tribute to the Brandenburg Concerti. My trio (a set of variations with finale) therefore opens in a distinctly Bachian "common practice" contrapuntal style. The attentive listener, however, will soon notice occasional and increasing intrusions of quartal and secondal sonorities. It is these which constitute the "glances from Igor" implied by the title.
mm
Harmonies such as these (built on fourths, seconds, sevenths and ninths) do not automatically suggest the same tonal functions as traditional tertian (triadic) harmony, so can sound more "static". Blending and reconciling these two musical languages was the underlying aim of my piece. Vaughn-Williams' melody, employed as a "wandering" Cantus Firmus, imparts familiar musical architecture, comforting cadence formulae, and clearly implied syntax offered by its regular phrase structure. These aspects are the music's "bones", which are then fleshed out by the spectrum of quartal harmonies. As the music progresses, the subtle shadings of quartal colours begin to reconcile with conventional elements.
mm
The finale departs from the safety of the melody line by using only its opening motif in a quasi-fugal texture: thank you Herr Bach. But the finale is tri-tonal: thank you Mr Ives. And thank you, Dear Reader, for taking the time to read me blog.