Year composed: 1995
Duration: 12′
Instrumentation: clarinet, violin, piano
Movements:
I. Fast, Swinging
II. Delicate, Fragile
III. Cheeky and Cheerful
Commissioned by the Verdehr Trio and premiered in Bangkok, Thailand on East Asian tour.
Notes:
The title Primary Colors refers to outer movements one and three. The music in these movements is bright, strong, fast and fun, with lots of syncopation and allusions to popular music. The music in the second movement is contrasting; it uses the resonance capabilities of the piano’s Sostenuto pedal, artificial harmonics in the violin, and lyrical melody in the clarinet.
Altogether, Primary Colors plays a game with perceptions involving motion and stasis in music. The first movement creates a feeling of direction through juxtaposition between sound and pauses: a montage of bold, ironic, strange, short, discrete gestures derived from a scrapbook of ragtime, blues, and other popular forms. Related to the first, the third movement layers bold and “cheeky” gestures to give a sense of drive and purpose. These create a tumbling effect only to start over at the end with a return, as the music of the first movement returns.
The outer games bring us to the center. Here, all the possibilities of surface are widely explored. And through the discrete characteristics of the piano’s middle pedal, an oscillation between stasis and motion occurs, bringing about a new kind of non-temporal movement. The “opal” of great price is in this center. The river of perceptions revolves around it and brings us to it. The second movement’s horizontal surface carries its own depth; its music marries both changing and eternal identity. The pair of outer movements guides us through the double entendre at the center.
Notes by John Campion