Fantasia Oscura (2022)
Purchase the score and parts
Duration: 12 minutes
Instrumentation: piano quintet (2 violins, viola, cello, and piano)
Commissioner: the Indiana University Arts & Humanities Council and the Jacobs School of Music Composition Department and Centennial Committee,
composed in memory of Sven-David Sandström
Premiere
3/3/2022, Indiana University New Music Ensemble (Jack Bogard and Bryson Karrer, violins; Maeve Whelan, viola; Jaemin Lee, cello;
Josh Catanzaro, piano; and David Dzubay, conducting), Bloomington, IN USA
Program Notes
I would consider Fantasia Oscura as a musical version of sand animation (a visual and performing art in which artists create various images using sand in succession: if you are not familiar, you can imagine a grayscale kaleidoscope instead) – an abstract and a non-narrative realization. This piece is through-composed and keeps morphing into various musical ideas freely.
Many musical elements used in this piece, including rhythmic patterns, chords (when they are clear), and musical gestures stem from (though highly modified) Yook-ja-bae-gi tori, one of the prevalent styles (tori means style) of traditional Korean music, which originates from the southern part of the Korean peninsula. For example, the scale primarily uses only sol, do, and me (and another sol above me). What's interesting here is the lowest note, sol, is always elaborated by a special type of wide vibrato, and "me" slides down from mi (or a quarter tone lower) to re (or a quarter tone lower). The two elaborating gestures, wide vibratos and descending glissandos are interspersed throughout this 10-minute-long work.
Duration: 12 minutes
Instrumentation: piano quintet (2 violins, viola, cello, and piano)
Commissioner: the Indiana University Arts & Humanities Council and the Jacobs School of Music Composition Department and Centennial Committee,
composed in memory of Sven-David Sandström
Premiere
3/3/2022, Indiana University New Music Ensemble (Jack Bogard and Bryson Karrer, violins; Maeve Whelan, viola; Jaemin Lee, cello;
Josh Catanzaro, piano; and David Dzubay, conducting), Bloomington, IN USA
Program Notes
I would consider Fantasia Oscura as a musical version of sand animation (a visual and performing art in which artists create various images using sand in succession: if you are not familiar, you can imagine a grayscale kaleidoscope instead) – an abstract and a non-narrative realization. This piece is through-composed and keeps morphing into various musical ideas freely.
Many musical elements used in this piece, including rhythmic patterns, chords (when they are clear), and musical gestures stem from (though highly modified) Yook-ja-bae-gi tori, one of the prevalent styles (tori means style) of traditional Korean music, which originates from the southern part of the Korean peninsula. For example, the scale primarily uses only sol, do, and me (and another sol above me). What's interesting here is the lowest note, sol, is always elaborated by a special type of wide vibrato, and "me" slides down from mi (or a quarter tone lower) to re (or a quarter tone lower). The two elaborating gestures, wide vibratos and descending glissandos are interspersed throughout this 10-minute-long work.