Treppab!!

2015
/
Chamber Music

Details

instrumentation

Saxophone quartet

duration

9 minutes

commissioned by

Society of Composers, Inc.

premiered by

Red Clay Saxophone Quartet

Inspired by a famous print Treppauf Treppab (Ascending and Descending in English, see the picture above) by M.C. Escher with the endless staircase on the rooftop of a castle, I decided to compose a piece exclusively with 'descending gestures.'

The horizontal and vertical intervals vary to form a wide variety of sections from a simple descending idea or motive.  With them, I wanted to depict a person's endeavor to escape from a system - would it happen eventually?