Human Nature: A CPP Degree Recital

Aware

for solo flute, recorded voice and electronics

By Nathalie Joachim

Aware was written and inspired by Sonnet IV from Epitaph for the Race of Man, a collection of sonnets written by Edna St. Vincent Millay. The poem, a commentary on the relative insignificance of man as compared to nature, led me to reflect on the larger subject of awareness. The lyrics sung in each of the five vocal parts of this piece are “Where are we? Are we aware?” These are questions I believe to be extremely important to consider at every moment in regard to oneself, others and our interactions with the world we live in.

“O EARTH, unhappy planet born to die, Might I your scribe and your confessor be, What wonders must you not relate to me Of Man, who when his destiny was high Strode like the sun into the middle sky And shone an hour, and who so bright as he, And like the sun went down into the sea, Leaving no spark to be remembered by. But no, you have not learned in all these years To tell the leopard and the newt apart; Man, with his singular laughter, his droll tears, His engines and his conscience and his art, Made but a simple sound upon your ears: The patient beating of the animal heart.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1934

~Nathalie Joachim

Dreaming Trees

Daniel Brugh

Antarctica

for alto flute and recorded sound

Elizabeth Brown

During the winter of 2004-05, Sara Wheeler’s book Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica was my bedtime reading. I started to dream about Antarctica, and this music was born in those dreams. I chose alto flute because of its range and timbre, and the taped portion consists of natural sounds recorded in my Brooklyn studio.

From Sara Wheeler’s book:

“The Landscape was intact, complete, and larger than my imagination could grasp. It was free of the diurnal cycle that locked us earthlings into the ineluctable routine of home. It didn’t have famines or social unrest. It was sufficient unto itself, untainted by the inevitable tragedy of the human condition.”

~Elizabeth Brown

Among Fireflies –

for Alto flute and live, interactive electroacoustics

Elaine Lillios

Among Fireflies (2010) for alto flute and live, interactive electroacoustics takes its inspiration from a haiku by poet Wally Swist who generously granted permission to use it for the piece:

Dense with fireflies The field flickers Through the fog!1

Swist’s imagery inspired me to consider texture and perspective, which became two focal aspects of the piece. The piece’s opening gestures place the performer in a field surrounded by a multitude of fireflies – perhaps the performer is a person, or perhaps the performer is a firefly him/herself. The piece’s progression slowly separates the performer (and listeners) from the masses of fireflies, the increasing distance changing our perspective on their activity and brilliance. By the piece’s end, we view the fireflies through the fog from a great distance, where only the smallest, blurred flickers persist, but the memory of their presence remains. Among Fireflies was commissioned by the Lipa Festival of Contemporary Music at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.

~ Elainie Lillios

Vox Balaenae

George Crumb

Vox Balaenae, or Voice of the Whale was inspired by the 1969 recording of the humpback whale singing. This piece was originally intended to use masks and lighting to dehumanize the projection of nature and amplification of the instruments so the audience can hear the extended techniques used to mimic the whale sounds.

 The opening Vocalise (…for the beginning of time) is a flute solo that incorporates a cadenza of singing into the flute to imitate whale songs and ends with an Also sprach Zarathustra quote from A Space Odyssey.

 The next movement consists of Variations on Sea-Time [Sea Theme]. This movement is consisting of harmonics in the cello and an “aeolian harp” effect in the piano. The first variation is titled Archeozoic and refers to ‘the age of unicellular life’ or bacteria – when oxygen was only in the water. The cello glides along the finger board to create the “seagull effect” and the pianist uses a chisel to glide along the piano strings. Proterozoic [Var. II] uses a paper clip in the piano and slow lines attempting to reach above to signify this crucial development of life when oxygen was found in the air and cellular life started to appear on land. The third variation, or Paleozoic, is a depiction of the oldest animals on earth – those of the sea. The alternating harmonics quintuplets passed through all the instruments depict the weaving motion of fish swimming through water. Mesozoic [Var. IV] is the age of complex life on land – the dinosaurs! The noble, broad melodic octaves played by the cello and flute are contrasted by the “jangling” glass rod placed in the piano’s counter melody. The final Variation is Cenozoic, which represents the age after the extinction of the dinosaurs and the dominance of mammals, including humans. Crumb uses each instrument individually, representing the individualistic nature of human existence. This movement ends with a recollection of motifs from the beginning of time and ends with whistling, foreshadowing the end of time.

 Sea-Nocturn (…for the end of time) begins with a whistling duet between the flutist and the cellist while the pedal is down in the piano. This serene melody is based on the first three notes in the cello in the last movement. This haunting ending gives the listener shimmery textures, noble, soaring melodic duet in the flute and cello, and a gentle dying away until nothing exists.

 ~Savannah Gentry

Farewell Feathered Friends

Jacob TV

Farewell Feathered Friends for piccolo and soundtrack was composed April 2020 and dedicated to Ilonka Kolthof.

Farewell Feathered Friends is a dialogue for piccolo and 5 endangered birds and was composed during the Covid-19 lock down at the initiative of Heather Pinkham, who invited 12 composers to write a small piece for 12 individual musicians under the umbrella of 'Music for Empty Spaces'. The world premiere will take place May 28, 2020, at the Amsterdam Muziekgebouw, including livestreaming.