Amiable Beast
Jay Vilnai
About this work:
A three movement piece for flute and piano. The first movement uses a lot of melodic and rhythmic ideas from Balkan and Eastern European music. The metric ideas rely heavily on a odd-meters that contrast short and long beats. The melodic language uses modes of harmonic-minor colored in ways reminiscent of the folk music of the Balkans (such as with a descending, phrygian, leading tone). The idea is not to ape this style of music, though, but to use it as a basis of creating harmonies that also look back at Western harmony. The piano part uses the modes introduced by the flute to build chords that harken back to late Romantic and Impressionistic composers. Form-wise, the movement creates variations on little cells first introduced in the flute’s long, flowing melody, a melody that returns throughout the movement in different disguises. Throughout the piece, the piano moves from its traditional accompanying role (where it starts) to a counterpoint partner to the flute, ending the movement as a single-note instrument on par with it.
The second movement finds the flute and the piano’s right hand trading chromatic phrases that avoid any harmonic implication. As their exchange gets thicker and louder, the piano left hand interjects with a fast, soft figure that is fragmented. Eventually, that figure takes over the dialogue and comes to the fore of all voices. The movement ends with a lower and darker iteration of the chromatic theme.
The third movement returns to using material derived from harmonic-minor modes, but the rhythmic and harmonic language are much more Western in style, with straight duple meters throughout and 7th and 9th chords in the piano. The movement is a virtuosic flute vehicle that uses a variation of sonata form, with a brief development that dwells on the opening few bars of the piece.
Year composed: 2010
Duration: 00:12:00
Ensemble type: Chamber or Jazz Ensemble, Without Voice:Keyboard plus One Instrument
Instrumentation: 1 Flute, 1 Piano