Turbulence, stillness, and saltation
Joelle Wallach
About this work:
Turbulence, Stillness and Saltationis a one movement work in three sections which reflect the moods suggested by the title. The work opens with a brief, wispy statement of melodic material from which the entire piece is constructed. This is immediately followed by the turbulent first section, a gestural parody of Schoenberg's "Chamber Symphony" Opus 9, with its broad, post-Romantic sweeps of musical color and rhetoric. The second section ("Stillness") treats the same motivic material in an entirely different way: it opens with a kettledrum solo and gradually adds other instrumental timbres. The jaggedness of the first section is transmuted to lyricism. Saltation is a word which means a leaping dance or a dancing leap. And this is the spirit of the third section with its asymmetrical dance patterns derived from the sequential alignment of rhythms implicit in the original motive. The work closes with a restatement of the motive in a chordal texture, emphasizing the dynamic changes characteristic of the work as a whole.
Turbulence, Stillness and Saltation won First Prize in the first Composition Competition of the Princeton Chamber Orchestra.
Year composed: 1983
Duration: 00:09:00
Ensemble type: Orchestra:Chamber Orchestra
Instrumentation: 1 Flute, 1 Oboe, 2 Clarinet, 1 Bassoon, 2 Horn in F, 1 Trumpet, 2 Percussion (General), 1 Strings (General), 1 Harp
Instrumentation notes: ch orch