Changes: A Little Music for Mozart
Elizabeth Vercoe
About this work:
Changes is an impressionistic single movement for chamber orchestra. It was commissioned and premiered in 1991 by the Pro Arte Orchestra in Cambridge, Massachusetts at Harvard's Sanders Theater for the debut concert of the new artistic director, Gisele Ben-Dor.
The title of the piece refers to the haunting, oscillating figure in the harp that opens the piece and then recurs with the notes in a different order as in change ringing on a carillon. The notes of the "change" are derived from entry points in the slow movement of Ruth Crawford's string quartet. Also, in honor of the bicentennial of the death of Mozart, several motifs from Mozart's music (from the Overture to Don Giovanni and the "Dissonant" Quartet) are hidden and dispersed among various instruments of the orchestra. Although there is a lively and rather jazzy section with a thumping double bass pizzicato and brassy interpolations, the piece is largely elegaic.
Year composed: 1991
Duration: 00:10:00
Ensemble type: Orchestra:Chamber Orchestra
Instrumentation: 2 Flute, 2 Oboe, 2 Clarinet, 2 Bassoon, 2 Horn in F, 2 Trumpet, 2 Percussion (General), 1 Strings (General), 1 Harp
Instrumentation notes: