About this work:
Polychrome Stride by Scott D. Miller
2010 Winner of the New York Composers Circle Award
Recorded live at Symphony Space, Thalia Theater, 6.4.11
Mary Barto, flute
Allen Blustine, clarinet
Stanichka Dimitrova, violin
Peter Prosser, cello
Christopher Oldfather, piano
Carl Bettendorf, conductor
http://youtu.be/Wv_l0mv9Jfg
Perhaps because both my wife and my brother are painters, I often find myself thinking about visual art. In fact, I can’t seem to go into a museum or gallery without immediately taking out my notes and beginning to write. My wife finds this very amusing.
I love to look at de Kooning, and when I do I see many things that depend upon the distance from which I view them. Up close, I can see Everything: every hue and current, the feel of the brush. But then I stand at a distance and believe that now I can really see it all: the form, the mesh of color. When I move to a middle distance, I get the best of both perspectives but even then I can only see some of everything; this to me, is polychrome – everything at once, nothing at all.
Stride, like the march, is a walk in rhythm. It is powerful, graceful and sure. The stride of James P. Johnson has an ease about it, a fluidity of motion. Stride can be other things of course. It can hesitate, strut or crawl. The important thing is that it keeps moving regardless of circumstance. There is an inevitability about it.
© Copyright 2009 Scott Miller (BMI)