Dawn Treader
(2007)
for flute and piano
duration: 6'
Score (PDF) 413 KB |
Audio (MP3) X.X MB |
| Maria Harman, flute Howard Na, piano |
Program Notes
The title Dawn Treader I borrowed from C.S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the fifth of seven novels in his Chronicles of Narinia series. While the story is fascinating and the writing first-rate, many years have passed since I read this book; so, I decided not to let extra-musical elements from Lewis’s fiction influence the music I would write.
As for the music, my choice of the solo flute (I had considered oboe and violin at first) came after studying Hector Berlioz’s thematic variations in his Symphonie Fantastique. In Berlioz’s music, it is the first violins and a solo flute who, in the first movement, introduce the idée fixe which represents his Beloved. This theme unifies the entire work, returning in all five movements in various ways; but the more Berlioz varies it, the more I miss the charming simplicity of its first, sparsely accompanied presentation, as the solo flute colors the first violin sound in a genuinely feminine statement.
While studying the Symphonie Fantastique, I also became interested in creating a form which did not circle back onto itself. This Romantic concept of form, unlike the formal “circles” found in Classical music, suggests a straight line – like the path of an arrow, shot at a target beyond our line of sight. Given that the musical “targets” in Romantic music are often reached in this way, I was inspired to write a piece in which, as Cervantes said, “the journey is the inn.”
After a brief introduction in the solo piano, harmonies unfold in rippling eighth notes, and the flute sings a slow melody. This music gives way to a passage of quick, shimmering gestures with flute and piano doubled at the unison. Near the end, a fragment from the introduction returns, and in the following silence, the music seems to glance over its own shoulder until the last sonority brings closure, and the afterimage fades.
Performances
Maria Harman, flute; Howard Na, piano, March 26, 2007