The Vacant Shore (2017)
Wind Ensemble (2+picc.2+Eng hn.Eb+2+bcl.alto sax.2+contra|4.4.2+btrb.euph.1|bass|harp|timp.3 perc)
Duration: c. 13 mins.
The Vacant Shore was written for David J. Martins and the Boston University Wind Ensemble, by whom the work was premiered in 2017, and recorded at the WGBH studios in Boston for a Summit Records release by Grammy award winning music producer and engineer, Jesse Lewis. The title is derived from the opening line of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem The Tides—“I saw the long line of the vacant shore”—from The Masque of Pandora and Other Poems (1875), which explores Longfellow’s profound feelings of loss, grief and acceptance over the tragic death of his second wife in terms of a tidal metaphor. While the sections of the work do not follow the 14-line structure of this Petrarchan sonnet, the music does evoke some sense of the gloom and despair of the opening octet, followed by the volta of the concluding sestet. The structure of the work consists of two large, bifurcated planes, which are in turn interrupted by a central section characterized by slow moving harmonies.
BU Wind Ensemble | David J. Martins, conductor
SUMMIT RECORDS | DCD 738
Music for Winds, Percussion and Piano (1994)
Flute, alto flute, oboe, English horn, clarinet, bass clarinet,
bassoon, contrabassoon, two horns, four percussion and piano
Duration: c. 15 mins.
The three movements of this work run directly into each other with no breaks, providing the architectural structure within which the music unfolds. The music itself plays on the contrast between dense blocks of kinetic energy and sparse, static textures, gradually revealing their interrelationship as related objects located at various points on a continuum. The areas of greatest density yield their energy in brief sonic paroxysms that unravel in time at speeds of transition proportional to the intensity of their output. The gradual unfolding of the stasis material kaleidoscopically refracts the chromatic spectra of the individual pitches, subsuming what came before in an ever-changing progression of aural color. The serial aspects of pitch succession, registration and rhythm are manipulated to produce melodic and harmonic structures of a recognizable motivic nature. The work is dedicated to DePaul Wind Ensemble conductor, Donald DeRoche, who conducted the ensemble in the premiere.