Blues
Chamber Music: violin and piano
Blues was composed in August of 1993 and was first performed in Arcosanti, AZ that same month. Cast in a single movement, Blues freely invokes the jazz idiom. However, these materials are submitted to classical formal treatment. The piece opens with the violin playing a generic Twentieth-Century motive, a stack of fourths. Against this, the piano introduces a dominant seventh chord, saying in effect “forget this, let’s play!”. The violin quickly complies, introducing the first of three melodies. This melody is answered by the piano, while the violin plays figuration. The second melody is introduced in the piano and answered by the violin in multiple-stops. The third melody is likewise introduced by the piano, and, during the violin’s answer, the piano introduces increasingly active figuration that brings back the accompaniment to the first melody, albeit in a transformed, virtuosic form. Against this, the violin restates the first melody, but, before it can conclude, it is abruptly cut off by a walking bass line. This marks the beginning of the second section of the piece, which is essentially a passacaglia (a piece based on a repeating bass line). Over this bass line, the piano plays an improvisatory (though not improvised) solo. When the violin enters, its solo begins to allude to the materials from the first section of the piece. The piano then repeats its solo in dialogue with the violin, bringing the section to a close. The third section brings back the materials from the first section, but in a new context. It begins with a fugue based on the third melody. This fugue contains many of the traditional fugal devices, including inversion, canon, and stretto. At the end of the fugue, the walking bass returns. This time, however, the musical device of quod libet is used, as each of the three main themes is simultaneously recapitulated above it. This climactic juxtaposition of the four main materials from the piece brings the third section to a close and launches into a restatement of the opening and into a virtuosic coda.