Threefold Wellspring
Michael Wittgraf
About this work:
Threefold Wellspring, for organ, was completed in April of 2002. The composer combines sonorities from the French organ tradition with twelve-tone techniques. The title refers to the composer’s source for pitches: three twelve-note rows and their accompanying transformations.
The number three plays additional roles in the music. The entire work is in three large sections, the third functioning as a return of the opening material. Each of the three rows is derived from consonant triads. During much of the work, the composer treats the right hand, left hand, and pedal as individual players, creating a kind of trio texture.
Although based on twelve-tone rows, the composer does not state rows in their entirety at all times. The basic sonorities of the work are taken from each of the three source rows. These sonorities are the major triad, the minor triad, the major seventh chord, the minor seventh chord, the dominant seventh chord, and the half-diminished seventh chord.
The work opens with its main theme over major seventh chords. The second section arrives after a transition that builds in tension. The second theme, which was foreshadowed in the first section, appears in the pedal. Following another tension-building transition, the pedal enters with a subordinate theme based on the opening, after which a full return of the first theme appears in canon.
Year composed: 2002
Duration: 00:08:00
Ensemble type: Keyboard:Organ
Instrumentation: