New Music USA Online Library

From Sun Tzu's The Art of War:

"Thus the army is established by deceit, moves for advantage, and changes through segmenting and reuniting. Thus its speed is like the wind, its slowness like the forest, its invasion and plundering like a fire; unmoving it is like the mountains. It is as difficult to know as the darkness; in movement it is like thunder."

 

Wind is the first piece written for a concert of works inspired by the above paragraph from The Art of War. In thinking about what to write for this concert, I decided to take a certain blatantly programmatic idea and run with it. The ensemble is divided into three groups which radiate out from the conductor. The central group, composed of mostly mid-ranged instruments represents the wind. To either side of the central wind group are instruments of extreme high and low range representing the landscape the wind is flowing through. The piece consists of the two landscape groups molding and forming the dynamics, pitches and sonic nature of the wind group. Various types of landscape are suggested, with the requisite change exacted from the wind. Though the wind is predominant throughout, it derives its power from that which it flows through and around.