The Flame of a Candle
Bruce J. Taub
About this work:
The title of my second piano trio, The Flame of a Candle is the title of a book by the French philosopher, Gaston Bachelard published in 1961. According to Alex Argyros, Bachelard was a "flame thinker." In the flame of a candle he sees not only an objext of reverie, but the path to a radical new aesthetic. Bachelard's work was first brought to my attention by my friend, Stephen Fisher when I was working on my piano quartet in 1997, entitled "...the limit of the flame..." (commissioned by the Empyrean Ensemble at UC, Davis; Ross Bauer, Director). That title was taken from what Bachelard's book, The Psychoanalysis of Fire describes as an "intuition" by Auguste Rodin: "Each thing is merely the limit of the flame to which it owes its existence." The actual music is, of course only indirectly related to Bachelard's ideas in the sense of what I find to be it's profound meaning with respect to the act of artistic creation and the meaning of art. Although the piece is non-tonal, it is quite pitch-centric (as are most of my pieces) and can be described as being "on" A. In addition, there is a direct relationship between certain emphasized pitches and specific rhythms and/or durations. The Flame of Candle was premiered by The Chamber Players of the League/ISCM in 2002. It is published by the Association for the Promotion of New Music.
Year composed: 2001
Duration: 00:15:00
Ensemble type: Chamber or Jazz Ensemble, Without Voice:Piano Trio
Instrumentation: 1 Piano, 1 Violin, 1 Cello