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Music for Bach to Walk to Hear Buxtehude By
1994
obbligato piano
flute
oboe
clarinet
bassoon
horn
percussion
3 bongos, chimes, snare drum, suspended cymbal, tambourine,
2 timpani, 2 tom-toms, triangle, vibraphone, 3 woodblocks
2 violins
viola
cello
doublebass
duration 18'
first performance:
Time's Arrow, cond. David Hoose
Tsai Performance Center, Boston / October 10, 1996
SCORE
Departure
Sleepwalking
Arrival
RECORDING—performance by Collage New Music, cond. David Hoose:
PROGRAM NOTE
In 1705, the 20-year old Johann Sebastian Bach traveled over two hundred miles on foot, from his home in Arnstadt to the city of Lübeck, to hear Dietrich Buxtehude's music played during the Abendsmusiken, a series of concerts following afternoon church services during the advent season. This three- movement work is an imaginary soundtrack for Bach's journey. The shape of each movement is essentially the same: ABA, with the opening material greatly embellished upon its return. The first movement is bright and syncopated, the second, slow and mysterious, the third, after a sleepy, snoring introduction, uses snippets from Wachet Auf to propel the music into a spinning moto perpetuo. There is little in this work to suggest directly the music of either Bach or Buxtehude; some gestures perhaps, the relentless activity in the piano part, some ornamentation in the second movement, the quotations in the third movement. These, however, give color rather than direction to the music. Instead this work is intended as an uncomplicated, perky, unscholarly homage to Bach, his musical enthusiasm, and his calf muscles.
REVIEW
High spirits, culture-worship, and a mess of architectonic banana peels all rolled into one.
Richard Buell • The Boston Globe