Island Prelude

Last updated

Island Prelude is a chamber work composed by Joan Tower in 1988. Intended for oboist Peter Bowman of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, it is originally scored for solo oboe and string orchestra.

Contents

Background

Joan Tower says that she found her inspiration for Island Prelude in oboist Peter Bowman's "exceptionally lyrical playing and also Samuel Barber's wonderfully controlled Adagio for Strings ". [1] The piece premiered May 4, 1989, in a performance by Peter Bowman and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Slatkin. Island Prelude is also scored for oboe and string quartet, and for woodwind quintet. [2] As part of a National Endowment for the Arts Consortium Commissioning Grant, the wind ensembles Quintessence, the Dorian Quintet, and the Dakota Quintet commissioned the woodwind quintet version for a series of premieres. The first performance of this arrangement was given by Nancy Clauter and Quintessence at Arizona State University on April 9, 1989. [3] The string quartet version was premiered on August 23, 1989 by Joan Tower at the Teton Festival in Wyoming. In the woodwind quintet, the Horn takes the role of the bass, the bassoon and clarinet cover the cello and viola, and the flute substitutes for the violin. Tower says that the woodwind quintet version is "heavier" due to the "weight" of the different timbres of the instruments that define the counterpoint and make it "more easily heard." [4] Island Prelude is also a rare example of a woodwind quintet that features one instrument as the soloist throughout the piece. [2] Each version of this piece is about 10 minutes in duration. It is dedicated "with love to Jeff Litfin". [1]

Analysis

Susan Feder's program notes of the St. Louis Symphony recording of this piece include imagery given by Tower regarding the title: [1]

"The Island is remote, lush, tropical with stretches of white beach interspersed with thick green jungle. Above is a large, powerful, and brightly colored bird which soars and glides, spirals up, and plummets with folded wings as it dominates but lives in complete harmony with its island home."

Tower's analysis of Island Prelude divides it into three main sections, possibly fitting the sonata form, or at least a variation of the ABA form. [4] The beginning largo section portrays "a very slow-moving consonant landscape that gradually becomes more active and dissonant." The beginning time signature is 5/4 with the quarter note ca. 40 beats per minute. [1] While the quarter pulse is kept constant, the number of beats per measure frequently changes between 5/4, 4/4, 3/4, and 2/4, creating the unpredictable, yet constant terrain. In the quintet, the horn begins the piece on an A, concert pitch. The clarinet and bassoon alternate on pitches A and B while trading triplet rhythms. The oboe begins its solo in measure 10 with sustained notes over the ebbing major 2nds, 4th, and 6ths. The use of consonant intervals maintains the sense of a "consonant landscape". Tower describes the oboe's presence as a "slightly more prominent and melismic line which in turn activates the surrounding held chords." Measure 12 breaks the consonance with the clarinet sounding a G# against the A in the bassoon and horn. Dissonant tension builds until the release at measure 15, then the tension begins again (m.21). The counterpoint develops into a second section, or B section, with more complex rhythm and independence of lines. At measure 54, superimposed tritones move up by half steps to continue the rising modulation. The chromaticism then begins to move downward (m.63), and the oboe recaps the running sixteenth and thirty-second patterns before resting (m.73). Chromatic steps, repetition, and dissonant leaps build to m90 where the oboe begins its flight of complex rhythm over spasmodic chords in the bass. The bass then imitates (m.97) parts of previous rhythmic ideas as the melodic line soars higher, building to measure 108 where all instruments hit a unison on C. A falling fifth pattern in the clarinet, horn, and bassoon brings the range back down and heavy counterpoint continues until the oboe returns on a high Eb trill (m.129). Three short chords sound under the trill and oboe plays the trill down an octave with each chord, ending on a low Eb. Here, the oboe begins its cadenza. Fast swooping arpeggios portray the flight patterns of the "large bird" gliding upward against the breeze. The oboe's "two short cadenzas" ascend "in a burst of fast notes that lead into a final, quiet coda." The ending section is a reflection back to the beginning, or A material, and is "very slow, sustained, high, and dissonant." The horn ends on an A, concluding on the same note that it began, and the oboe holds a high B, reflecting back on the opening major second. The other instruments fill in the notes of the ending major ninth chord.

Related Research Articles

Musical ensemble Group of people who perform instrumental and/or vocal music, with the ensemble typically known by a distinct name

A musical ensemble, also known as a music group or musical group, is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music, with the ensemble typically known by a distinct name. Some music ensembles consist solely of instruments, such as the jazz quartet or the orchestra. Some music ensembles consist solely of singers, such as choirs and doo wop groups. In both popular music and classical music, there are ensembles in which both instrumentalists and singers perform, such as the rock band or the Baroque chamber group for basso continuo and one or more singers. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles. Some ensembles blend the sounds of a variety of instrument families, such as the orchestra, which uses a string section, brass instruments, woodwinds and percussion instruments, or the concert band, which uses brass, woodwinds and percussion.

Orchestration study or practice of writing music for an orchestra

Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra or of adapting music composed for another medium for an orchestra. Also called "instrumentation", orchestration is the assignment of different instruments to play the different parts of a musical work. For example, a work for solo piano could be adapted and orchestrated so that an orchestra could perform the piece, or a concert band piece could be orchestrated for a symphony orchestra.

Joan Tower is a Grammy-winning contemporary American composer, concert pianist and conductor. Lauded by The New Yorker as "one of the most successful woman composers of all time", her bold and energetic compositions have been performed in concert halls around the world. After gaining recognition for her first orchestral composition, Sequoia (1981), a tone poem which structurally depicts a giant tree from trunk to needles, she has gone on to compose a variety of instrumental works including Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, which is something of a response to Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, the Island Prelude, five string quartets, and an assortment of other tone poems. Tower was pianist and founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players, which commissioned and premiered many of her early works, including her widely performed Petroushskates.

Alvin Derald Etler was an American composer and oboist.

Arnold Atkinson Cooke was a British composer.

Flute repertoire is the general term for pieces composed for flute. The following lists are not intended to be complete, but rather to present a representative sampling of the most commonly played and well-known works in the genre. The lists also do not generally include works originally written for other instruments and subsequently transcribed, adapted, or arranged for flute, unless such piece is very common in the repertory, in which case it is listed with its original instrumentation noted.

Octet (music) musical group that consists of 8 people

In music, an octet is a musical ensemble consisting of eight instruments or voices, or a musical composition written for such an ensemble.

Dan Welcher is an American composer, conductor, and music educator.

The Symphony No. 4 by Arnold Bax was completed in 1930 and dedicated to Paul Corder. It was inspired by Bax's love of the sea and premiered in 1931 by British conductor Basil Cameron and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

Lento is a composition for orchestra written by Howard Skempton in 1990. It was Skempton's third work for large forces, and his first major success.

Gary Kulesha is a Canadian composer, pianist, conductor, and educator. Since 1995, he has been Composer Advisor to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He has been Composer-in-Residence with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony (1988–1992) and the Canadian Opera Company (1993–1995). He was awarded the National Arts Centre Orchestra Composer Award in 2002. He currently teaches on the music faculty at the University of Toronto.

In music, a decet—sometimes dectet, decimette, or even tentet —is a composition which requires ten musicians for a performance, or a musical group that consists of ten people. The corresponding German word is Dezett, the French is dixtuor. Unlike some other musical ensembles such as the string quartet, there is no established or standard set of instruments in a decet.

October is a contemporary piece for concert band that was written by Eric Whitacre in 2000. Based on the guidelines as established by the authors of Teaching Music through Performance in Band, October is a Grade 5 piece.

Roger John Goeb was an American composer.

John Corigliano's Symphony No. 1 for Orchestra was written between 1988 and 1989 during the composer's tenure as the first Composer-In-Residence for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The symphony's first performance was by the Chicago Symphony conducted by Daniel Barenboim on March 15, 1990.

The woodwind section, which consists of woodwind instruments, is one of the main sections of an orchestra or concert band. Woodwind sections contain instruments given Hornbostel-Sachs classifications of 421 and 422, but exclude 423.

The Bassoon repertoire consists of pieces of music composed for bassoon as a principal instrument that may be performed with or without other instruments. Below is a non-exhaustive list of major works for the bassoon.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Slatkin, Leonard. "Island Prelude." By Joan Tower. St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Elektra Entertainment, 1990.
  2. 1 2 Tower, Joan. 1992. Island Prelude; for oboe and wind quartet. Associated Music Publishers, Inc. New York, New York.
  3. ↑ Tower, Joan. 1992. Island Prelude; for oboe and wind quartet Associated Music Publishers, Inc. New York, New York.
  4. 1 2 G. Schirmir Inc., Island Prelude
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.