In the Light of Present Reality
Bruce J. Taub
About this work:
In the Light of Present Reality was written for the Trio Maurice Durufle in Paris (Magali Goimard, piano; Gilles DeLiege, viola; Jerome van Wynsberge, flute).
I first met pianist Magali Goimard in 1996 when she visited the offices of C.F. Peters Corporation (when I was Editor in Chief there). She was looking for some contemporary American music that the trio could perform on upcoming concerts. We seemed to become friends almost immediately and I gave her a copy of my Preludes for piano. I soon learned that the trio was planning a New York debut recital and that Magali would be performing two of my preludes. After the concert, I was asked to write something new for the trio that they would premiere in Paris and wrote In the Light of Prsent Reality for them. This new piece was closely related to a piece written just before it that was commissioned by the Empyrean Ensemble at UC, Davis (Ross Bauer, Director) entitled "...the limit of the flame..." which also has a French connection. The title of that piece was taken from what Gaston Bachelard in his book, The Pschoanalysis of Fire describes as an intuition by Auguste Rodin: "Each thing is merely the limit of the flame to which it owes its existence." Bachelard's work had been brought to my attention by my friend and colleague, Stephen Fisher.
The title In the Light of Present Reality was taken from something written by Stephen in which he questioned our tacit assumptions about music in the light of present reality. The piece is in three movements in a traditional fast-slow-fast(er) relationship although it is really divided in two parts since the first movement is the most substantial and is as long as the second and third movements combined. 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 correlation between certain important pitches and specific rhythms and/or durations.
In the Light of Present Reality is published by C.F. Peters Corporation.
Year composed: 1998
Duration: 00:10:00
Ensemble type: Chamber or Jazz Ensemble, Without Voice:Other Combinations, 2-5 players
Instrumentation: 1 Flute, 1 Piano, 1 Viola