Reversal of Fortune (2012)
violin, cello - 10'
Fortune
This piece was commissioned by the Life/Art Dance Ensemble based in Denver, Colorado. The topic of the project was "fate versus coincidence". In researching both ideas and how people have dealt with them in the past I found some inspiration in the "Moirai", or the Three Fates, of Greek Mythology (fate= Fortuna in Roman mythology). The three Moirai spin, measure, and cut the thread of life for each person. Those actions (spinning, measuring, and cutting) make excellent kinetic models for musical gesture and character. Simply depicting those tasks musically seemed a stale idea to me, so I imagined each "fate" giving up their respective duties and wrote the piece to depict the musical "consequences". The spinning (initiated by the spinning wheel's foot pedal) slows to a stop; the measuring (being compared to a standard)- musically, a pedal point collapses into a conjunct melody; and the cutting stops, allowing the music to flow freely.
Reversal
This order however- flow-stop, flattening melody, stop-flow- does not work well for a piece of music, since it starts with an ending and ends with a beginning. So I decided to reverse the order. Structurally, this works better for the music and also added a level of musical discourse to play with. Throughout the work key areas are reversed, gestures are turned upside down, and ultimately the structure of the first and second movements (at first stable [A], then a contrasting relatively unstable section [B], and a reprise of the stable section [A']) is reversed in the third (unstable, stable, unstable).
Fortune-reprise
Another aspect of the "fate versus coincidence" topic that is explored in Reversal of Fortune is that of coordination versus simultaneity. Fate and coincidence are both concepts that attempt to deal with the confluences of events in meaningful ways and musically, the difference between the two can be expressed by having the players either play together, or simply play individually at the same time. Throughout the work more non-coordinated but simultaneous playing is incorporated culminating in the "unstable" first section of the third movement.
Coda
The piece grinds to a halt, like the un-pedalled spinning wheel and closes indefinitely, inviting some kind of a continuation. Thinking back, one may hear that the ending leads nicely into the opening of the work (whose stopped cutting is itself a reversal, musically at least, to the spinning down ending). The oddly organic "strange loop" that the entire work creates gives the music a "mythical" character to me- a sort of encapsulation and re-interpretation of a phenomenon.
Video Performance of "Reversal of Fortune"
Fortune
This piece was commissioned by the Life/Art Dance Ensemble based in Denver, Colorado. The topic of the project was "fate versus coincidence". In researching both ideas and how people have dealt with them in the past I found some inspiration in the "Moirai", or the Three Fates, of Greek Mythology (fate= Fortuna in Roman mythology). The three Moirai spin, measure, and cut the thread of life for each person. Those actions (spinning, measuring, and cutting) make excellent kinetic models for musical gesture and character. Simply depicting those tasks musically seemed a stale idea to me, so I imagined each "fate" giving up their respective duties and wrote the piece to depict the musical "consequences". The spinning (initiated by the spinning wheel's foot pedal) slows to a stop; the measuring (being compared to a standard)- musically, a pedal point collapses into a conjunct melody; and the cutting stops, allowing the music to flow freely.
Reversal
This order however- flow-stop, flattening melody, stop-flow- does not work well for a piece of music, since it starts with an ending and ends with a beginning. So I decided to reverse the order. Structurally, this works better for the music and also added a level of musical discourse to play with. Throughout the work key areas are reversed, gestures are turned upside down, and ultimately the structure of the first and second movements (at first stable [A], then a contrasting relatively unstable section [B], and a reprise of the stable section [A']) is reversed in the third (unstable, stable, unstable).
Fortune-reprise
Another aspect of the "fate versus coincidence" topic that is explored in Reversal of Fortune is that of coordination versus simultaneity. Fate and coincidence are both concepts that attempt to deal with the confluences of events in meaningful ways and musically, the difference between the two can be expressed by having the players either play together, or simply play individually at the same time. Throughout the work more non-coordinated but simultaneous playing is incorporated culminating in the "unstable" first section of the third movement.
Coda
The piece grinds to a halt, like the un-pedalled spinning wheel and closes indefinitely, inviting some kind of a continuation. Thinking back, one may hear that the ending leads nicely into the opening of the work (whose stopped cutting is itself a reversal, musically at least, to the spinning down ending). The oddly organic "strange loop" that the entire work creates gives the music a "mythical" character to me- a sort of encapsulation and re-interpretation of a phenomenon.
Video Performance of "Reversal of Fortune"
