Program note
Originally conceived as a double bass quartet and later expanded for chamber orchestra for a Yale DMA recital, VERS LE BLEU • VERS LE ROUGE reached its final form in fall 2005. The piece explores perceived speed — acceleration and deceleration, compression and expansion — drawing loosely on the astrophysical ideas of redshift and blueshift.
Rather than illustrating these concepts, the music remains in constant flux: material stretches, contracts, thickens, thins, accelerates, and dissolves, sometimes into near stillness. This is evident from the outset, where an explosive gesture immediately loses energy, and the theme fragments across the ensemble at varying speeds, like debris dispersing. The work unfolds through this recurring cycle of surge and dissipation, and its reversal.
Recording
Details
Instrumentation
String quartet
Duration
16'
Date
2005
Sheet music
Available upon request
Prizes
International Lutosławski Competition – Second Prize
Warsaw, Poland, 2005
Mario Bernardo Angelo-Comneno International Competition – Grand Prize
Rome, Italy, 2006
First performance
International M. B. Angelo-Comneno Competition
Rome, Italy, December 2006
Selected performances
Chamber Ensemble Left Coast
Throckmorton Theater, Mill Valley, CA, April 2, 2009
Chamber Ensemble Left Coast
The Green Room, 401 Van Ness, San Francisco, CA, April 6, 2009