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These two duos are contemporary chamber music that happen to be inspired by the same poem and are for the same pair of instruments. I don’t consider them two movements of a single work, although it is perfectly reasonable to perform them together too.
The poem “Mirror of Diana” by Victorian-era poet Mathilde Blind has an evocative opening and closing stanza. These pieces both came out of those lines, but they are very different in character.
The two pieces are:
- float into the quiet skies: Rising lines soar upward, arpeggios and tremolos cascade up and down with a serene ending. Moderately challenging. Although in 4/4 it should be played with a cadenza-like freedom. Sparing percussion highlights the flute’s dramatic moments: high metal wind chimes, triangle, maraca. Duration approx. 4’45”
- melt into the flux: More of an equal partnership than “float…”, the staccato notes of the flute and temple blocks answer each other and color each other’s sound. Much more rhythmically driven. Percussion is 5 temple blocks and 3 roto toms. Duration approx. 4′
Part of the Poetry-Inspired Music collection
Listen
float into the quiet skies: Listen to an MP3 audio file, created with virtual orchestra sounds, including East West Quantum Leap and Native Instruments Kontakt 3.
melt into the flux: Listen to a recording by Jessi Rosinski, flute and Jeffrey Means, percussion.
Poem – Excerpt
The Mirror of Diana
By Mathilde Blind (1841-1896)
from Birds of Passage (1895): Songs of the Occident
She floats into the quiet skies,
Where, in the circle of hills,
Her immemorial mirror fills
With light, as of a Virgin’s eyes
When, love a-tremble in their blue,
They glow twin violets dipped in dew.
…
Haunting the deep reflective mind,
You may surprise its perfect Sphere
Glassed like the Moon within her mere,
Who at a puff of alien wind
Melts in innumerable rings,
Elusive in the flux of things.
Read the whole poem at http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/blind03.html
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