For Jennifer Fitzgerald
marc faris
About this work:
During the process of working on For Jennifer Fitzgerald, I came to a sobering realization: the period during which I knew Jen as a dear friend and colleague constituted virtually her entire career as a composer. Jen came to Duke as a graduate student in 1999 with only a handful of pieces under her belt; her musical and personal growth in the 8 short years that followed was nothing less than astonishing to me, and I am honored to have been witness to her transformation(s). In the months that followed Jennifer’s passing, I often returned to music for which we had shared a deep admiration. Morton Feldman’s Palais de Mari held a special resonance for me; virtually every afternoon, I found myself drawn to play through as much of the piece as I could find time for, as if through the sheer force of repetition I might be able to hold on to her presence. For Jennifer Fitzgerald is colored indelibly by that experience. (Those familiar with Feldman’s last work will undoubtedly recognize the many quotations, especially its plaintive opening four-note motive, which is obsessively repeated and reworked across the present piece.)
The work is cast in three overlapping movements. After a loud, ringing attack on a single note in the piano, the first movement immediately retreats into a searching, unsettled mood, contrasting long, quiet violin lines with more pointillistic and/or polyrhythmic piano writing. The movement’s middle is explicitly structured around a series of “moments” from Palais de Mari – sustained chordal sonorities upon which the violin freely extemporizes – before the movement draws to a close with a revisit of the opening material that briefly swells before tapering away again. The second movement begins and ends with two alternate versions of the same long solo for violin – besides the piano, the instrument I most closely associate with Jen – which draws on some of the first movement’s pitch and interval material, but within a more virtuosic and dramatic mode. The first version, having reached an apparent climax, skitters to a halt as the piano interrupts with its own solo, built almost entirely around the primary Palais motive. The piano tapers away to an indistinct rumble, and the violin returns, as the second version of the solo unfolds with more assurance and closes with a chant-like passage. With a meandering chromatic figure that recalls another late Feldman work (Triadic Memories), the third movement aims to evoke a sense of calm contemplation; as the piano gradually drifts toward the topmost, chime-like range of the instrument, the violin alternates between long lines and a repeated “sighing” gesture. While not by conscious design, there is, I think, a quality to the overall architecture of the piece that could be perceived as a reflection of the grieving process, from the shock of discovery to acceptance (and everything that comes between).
As the process of composing For Jennifer Fitzgerald drew to a close, I became preoccupied with the notion that the piece was not “saying” everything that I wanted –about Jen, about my feelings about Jen, about her loss and what comes next. I hope that this piece communicates some small portion of that mountain of feeling.
For Jennifer Fitzgerald was composed at the invitation of John McDonald, one of Jen’s teachers and mentors, for a memorial concert at Tufts in October 2008, and I am deeply grateful to him for this opportunity to pay tribute to Jen.
Year composed: 2008
Duration: 15:00:00
Ensemble type: Chamber or Jazz Ensemble, Without Voice:Keyboard plus One Instrument
Instrumentation: 1 Piano, 1 Violin