The file is available for free at http://www.m3.com/ssn

Three, as the expression goes, is a magic number.  Three movements was
once the dominant typology of a symphony, and many concerti and sonatas for
instrument and piano still gravitate back to it.  While the formula of fast
low fast - or its somewhat less frequent cousing, slow fast slow - is well
worn, it lives on the simple nature of contrast.  Slow seems slower next to
fast, fast seems faster next to slow.  We run and we breath.  We do and we
reflet, and then do again.

First movement -

Haydn's magic was in the monothematic allegro, making one theme serve as
its self and it salter ego, as both here and there.  Monothematic movements
are, and have benn, out of fashion for some time - rows are not themes -
and even give rise to charges of "puacity of materials".  Wehere as
Beethoven was proud when he could write I used six ideas then, when one
would do." Inspiractions are like children, too many of them in one place
and they do not have enough space to grow.

Second Movement -

I've been told I am a minimalist, or neo-romantic, or neo-classicst, or
post-modern neo-baroque.  If I were, then wouldn't it be readily obvious
that I was one and only one catagorey? Yet all of these works are composed
in exactly the same way with exactly the same process.  The differences in
surface are that - surface.  I suppose on could have accused Mendelssohn
of having been neo-baroque, post-Beethoven, romanticist, victorian and
classicist all at once.  The unity stands out at a distance.  We see the
houses, and only as we walk away from it, the hill.

The inspiration for this particular section of music came from Stephen
Hicken's work based on a Wallace poem - the piece is "Little Bits of
Paper", the poem is "Two Pairs".  Mr. Hicken is a very different composer.
And yet, I wanted to write something tha thad the same look upon the page,
even if motivated by very different ideas.

And yet the similarities are also there, the use of sets ands cells, the
preference for isorhythms in a instrumental line, the basic stance that
polyrhythms are normal, the emphasis on characterisation being an essential
conceptual part of a work.  The difference is, I suppose, that I would
rather vote for a Carter than compose like one.

Third Movement -

When a piece is badly structured, we say it is disorderly.  When there is
something underneath it, which we cannot quite fathom, but can perceive, we
call it fragmented.  Sometimes we say the later about works simply because
we know better than to play the fool questioning an important composer.
Sometimes we say the former when we can't be bothered.

stirling s newberry
[log in to unmask]
http://www.mp3.com/ssn