![]() ![]() Carefully structured, the material of the B section returns, before giving way to a revisiting of the quiet, reflective opening. The C section is the centerpiece of the quartet as the third Inuit song unfolds into an intricate fugue, with all its material deriving from this productive source. The quartet is often referred to as a turning point in her music. The A section of the A – B – C – B – A structure concludes with a revisiting of the "Summer Song" music.ĭramatic chords herald the B section which draws from a third theme, "Ititaujang’s Song." This provides rich material for Beach’s contrapuntal style, together with further development of the second part of "Playing at ball." By keeping the focus on the relatively simple Inuit themes, Beach found herself paring back her formerly dense harmonic style, while maintaining a leaner, lighter contrapuntal development in and around her borrowed material. Almost as soon as the other instruments join in, a second Inuit theme ("Playing at ball") is heard from the first violin and immediately becomes material for extended, often chromatic development by the quartet. This is the first Inuit melody (titled "Summer Song" by Boas) which is built around a five-note (pentatonic) scale. A suspenseful introduction over a descending bass line leads into the poignant first theme from solo viola. The quartet has an arch-like structure and is based upon three songs of the Alaskan Inuit drawn from Franz Boas’s 1888 monograph T he Central Eskimo. Sketched in 1921 as a Fellow at the MacDowell Colony, the artist’s retreat in New Hampshire (to whom she was to bequeath her royalties) and completed in Rome eight years later, the work is in a single movement. In all, Beach was to incorporate folk song (Irish, English, Scottish, Balkan, African American) and Indigenous music found throughout the United States in some 30 compositions.įive of these works by Beach are influenced by North American Indian and Inuit songs and music-making. Calling MacDowell’s pioneering composition “the one great epic of our Indian life,” the by then well-established Amy Beach was inspired to turn to the folk music of her own Anglo-Irish heritage between 18, while composing her grandly conceived Gaelic Symphony. 48 (1891-5) on themes drawn from an 1882 publication by Theodore Baker titled On the Music of the North American Indians. At the time, Edward MacDowell was already at work on his Second Orchestral Suite ("Indian"), Op. However, there were stirrings of an interest in folksong by American classical composers before 1893, when Antonin Dvořák came up with his much-discussed endorsement of African American song as the basis for an American national music, later adding Indigenous American music. ![]() The idea of musical nationalism came later to North American composers than to the Europeans. Focusing on the snow, the idea of writing variations on it and its various forms became clearer in my mind.”īorn in Henniker, NH, Septemdied in New York City, December 27, 1944 While pondering the musical textures opened up by this combination of instruments, Saariaho recalls that she “saw snowflakes falling from the dark sky of the Finnish autumn. ![]() The piece started life as the concluding movement of a 1998 suite for eight cellos. Fleurs de neige is, in effect, a miniature tone poem. Fragments of themes are shared between the four instruments, each adding color and texture to the sound by bowing at varying distances from the instrument’s bridge, on either side of the bridge, with varying bow pressure, varying degrees of vibrato and finger pressure on the string, frequent use of harmonics, micro-intervals, trills, glissandi and other coloristic techniques. The brief, poetic Fleurs de neige (Snowflakes) immediately draws us into Saariaho’s micro musical landscape. Her language is highly refined, constantly evolving and colored by the electronics she began to incorporate into her music after resettling in Paris in 1982. One of a generation of Finnish musicians with prominent international careers, Kaija Saariaho studied the visual arts before focusing on music. Her music often reflects visual thinking, with musical textures evolving from color and timber rather than from traditional tonal musical gestures or rhythm. Thank you.īorn in Helsinki, Finland, October 14, 1952 Photography and recording of any kind are not permitted. Please be considerate of others and turn off all phones and watch alarms. ![]() PROGRAM INFORMATION Meta4 Quartet Saturday, November 12, 2022 ![]()
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