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Fabrication 18: Fairyland
2012

vibraphone

duration 3'

SCORE

RECORDING

available at www//andyvores.bandcamp.com

digital

   compact disc
 


  PROGRAM NOTE:
I typically write music with fairly involved programmatic intentions along with forms that echo or
amplify them. However, I also enjoy music that simply unfolds a process or a ‘conceit’. Fabrication 18: Fairyland is a component part of a larger 32-movement cycle for various ensembles ranging from solos and duos to works for orchestra. These Fabrications explore more mechanical approaches to generating music. Each has a subtitle; a synonym of ‘fabrication’ which says something about the piece itself.
•
Despite its fanciful title, Fairyland, for solo vibraphone, is a carefully crafted impressionistic landscape, suggesting a world that is both beautiful and strange. It begins with perhaps the simplest possible of musical gestures: an arpeggiated ascending four-note C major chord. The half-step chromaticism that forms the foundation of the piece is immediately introduced by the second phrase, an arpeggiated four-note figure consisting of the same C major triad as before, but with a high C# replacing the high C. The opening section continues with similar soft, four-note arpeggiated figures, creating a hazy cloud of sound that carries the listener on a sojourn that is both comfortingly familiar yet also foreign due to the ever-present half-step chromaticisms. Shifting metric groupings, at times suggesting a hesitation to proceed, blur the outlines of reality within the dreamlike atmosphere created by the harmonic stasis. The second section focuses on shimmering chords that literally tremble thanks to the vibraphone's motor, with the half-step chromaticisms continuing to ascend ever higher. The journey draws to a close with another simple gesture: three B-naturals in descending octaves alternating with chords and finally ending on a single pitch, suggesting a retreat from fantasy but perhaps also with a new understanding (we never return to our starting point of C major), and not without a little regret.
Rebecca Marchand

see also Fabrications