Suite for Ten Instruments

for flute, oboe, clarinet in b-flat, bassoon, horn in F, piano, violin, viola, violoncello, and double bass

Duration: 21 minutes

Commissioned and premiered by NouLou Chamber Players

Premiered April 15, 2024 at Oxmoor Farm, Louisville, Kentucky

This collection of images comes from late 2023/early 2024, using ten instruments as a whole ensemble, but also in subgroups of fewer players, each movement with a distinct character and story (the first and last movements are mirror images of each other). 

I. Still life: lake (all instruments)

Spacious.

Lakes are often still bodies of water, not moving like rivers or oceans. They’re glassy, static, reflective, calm. This is a still life painting of a lake. Pentatonic chords move slowly, quietly, patiently through space, each chord touching or overlapping.

II. A tree (1824) (oboe, bassoon, horn, double bass)

Regal. Elegant.  

Built in ternary form: two stately trunks of music frame an elegant middle section of branches and vines reminiscent of older music; heard in 1824? The tree sits just off the road, and based on the age of the two felled trees next to it – 100 years, we think, measured by counting their rings – we guess its age to be at least 200 years old.

III. (an adagio) (flute, violin, violoncello)

Plaintive.

Smooth and angularly contoured melodic lines, with brief tense, canonic figures.

IV. Jacob wrestles with the angel (all)

Metaphorical, not theological

How does one wrestle with an angel, a being portrayed (in a modern, consumerist culture) as pure, peaceful, protective? Grappling and tussling on the ground, dusty and dry, getting its robe and wings dirty. 

In this section of the suite, all ten instruments push against each other, sometimes resting together, compromising, but not finding resolution or clarity

V. Untitled, with Mozart (clarinet and viola)

Lento.

An abstract line drawing. Lines that are long and broad. A daydream interrupted, briefly, by Mozart’s trio K. 498 in the background.

VI. Still life: clouds reflected on lake (all)

A mirror image of “Still like: lake.” All the same music, but in reverse, like clouds reflected on a lake, or a lake reflected on clouds.

Audio preview corresponds to score preview below: