San Francisco Night
Reynold Tharp
About this work:
In June of 2006, while watching the evening fog roll in on the last day of a visit to San Francisco, I was reminded of György Ligeti’s Clocks and Clouds, which was inspired by his stays in the Bay Area in the late 1960s and early 70s. I was eager to listen to Clocks and Clouds again when I returned to Chicago the next day, but arrived home to an inbox full of forwarded obituaries. Ligeti had passed away the day before. That chance association of San Francisco fog and the melancholy of loss became the starting point for my San Francisco Night. The title comes from a poem of the same name by the rather obscure French poet Paul Gilson from his collection Au rendez-vous des solitaires. The poem begins:
Je crois qu’il n’a jamais fait plus noir que ce soir
où la sirène pleure au bord du monde en ruines
mais la merveille vaut le prix du désespoir….
(I think it’s never been blacker than tonight
as the siren cries at the edge of the ruined world
but the wonder repays the cost of despair….) — translation by Adam Frey
The ensemble (flute, clarinet, horn, piccolo trumpet, percussion, piano, violin, and cello) is treated as a miniature orchestra (two instruments from each family of winds, brass, percussion, and strings) without a strong bass. This chamber ensemble “without feet” allowed me to create intricately detailed, floating textures while maintaining clarity of line and shape. While the piece traverses a variety of musical materials and moods, they are bound together by similar falling contours or lamento gestures that recall the spreading fog.
San Francisco Night was premiered by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players on 6 May 2008 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco and is dedicated to the ensemble, Music Director David Milnes, and Executive Director Adam Frey.
Year composed: 2008
Duration: 00:13:00
Ensemble type: Chamber or Jazz Ensemble, Without Voice:Other Combinations, 6-9 players
Instrumentation: 1 Flute, 1 Clarinet, 1 Horn in F, 1 Trumpet, 1 Percussion (General), 1 Piano, 1 Violin, 1 Cello