LUNENBURG (Shadows VII) (2017)
for voice, flute and string quartet
I try to compose inspired music that does not obviously imitate the inspiration. In this case, the inspiration is Lunenburg itself, the name, the location, the history, the waves and the weather. The primordial roots of Nova Scotia, paintings by J.M.W. Turner and especially the works of local artist Joseph Purcell inspired aspects of the piece.
The opening and closing string quartet is intended to frame the piece by providing a static sense of time with hints or Lunenburg’s Germanic history, the rocks and the trees and the ceaseless undulating of the waves. Within this frame, a vision of the town appears from morning to night with sun and rain, then lightning and storms, but starting with the voice of a sylph floating over the sea.
The voice is often used instrumentally with the flute, as a duet partner accompanied by the string quartet. The text is subject to the will of the soprano but at times includes the ancient names for Lunenburg: Aseedic (place of clams), Mirligaiche (milky surf) and Malagash, and quotes from Pierrot Lunaire by Arnold Schoenberg. Shapes of phrases from Claude Debussy’s La Mer and his Cello Sonata (subtitled Pierrot fâche avec la lune) occur regularly and finally words of the wonderfully evocative poem Waves by Glenn Ward Dresbach (1922) fade into distant sounds of the sea.
The Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu has always meant a lot to me. A number of Takemitsu’s water pieces have been based on the notes SEA (Eb, E, A) and I have done the same.
Robert Aitken
for voice, flute and string quartet
I try to compose inspired music that does not obviously imitate the inspiration. In this case, the inspiration is Lunenburg itself, the name, the location, the history, the waves and the weather. The primordial roots of Nova Scotia, paintings by J.M.W. Turner and especially the works of local artist Joseph Purcell inspired aspects of the piece.
The opening and closing string quartet is intended to frame the piece by providing a static sense of time with hints or Lunenburg’s Germanic history, the rocks and the trees and the ceaseless undulating of the waves. Within this frame, a vision of the town appears from morning to night with sun and rain, then lightning and storms, but starting with the voice of a sylph floating over the sea.
The voice is often used instrumentally with the flute, as a duet partner accompanied by the string quartet. The text is subject to the will of the soprano but at times includes the ancient names for Lunenburg: Aseedic (place of clams), Mirligaiche (milky surf) and Malagash, and quotes from Pierrot Lunaire by Arnold Schoenberg. Shapes of phrases from Claude Debussy’s La Mer and his Cello Sonata (subtitled Pierrot fâche avec la lune) occur regularly and finally words of the wonderfully evocative poem Waves by Glenn Ward Dresbach (1922) fade into distant sounds of the sea.
The Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu has always meant a lot to me. A number of Takemitsu’s water pieces have been based on the notes SEA (Eb, E, A) and I have done the same.
Robert Aitken