In the Dragon’s Mouth (2014), for horn and fixed media

Eric McINTYRE

Variations on a Theme by Bach, for solo piano

Jason FUEMMELER

Then Thousand Things Moving, for solo clarinet

Robert MARTIN

The Shriek of Silence (2017)

Logan LARSON

Rush of Air, for flute trio

Denise KNAACK

It couldn’t be done

Zachary RANDALL

Nocturne in 4-3, for cello and piano

Warren GOOCH

like that time

Aaron LEVIN

Psalm 90, for solo piano

Elaine ERICKSON

Ancestral Journeys, for solo piano

Bonnie JOHANSEN-WERNER

Lancelot and Guinevere, for piano trio

Randy WELLS

In the Dragon’s Mouth is another of those compositions where I have the pleasure of doing a bunch of things that used to get me kicked out of junior high band class. Audio materials were recorded in Yellowstone National Park’s Mud Volcano thermal area where a massive, seething hot spring, called the Dragon’s Mouth, bellows unceasingly. When I arrived at midnight to record the springs, the whole area was buried in a thick fog, and I found myself wading into an other-worldly realm with the groans of the dragon’s mouth accompanied by coyotes crying in the distance.

The theme for Variations on a Theme by Bach comes from the introduction to the soprano aria heard in Cantata #21. My variations are inspired in part by the music of Viktor Ullmann (1898-1944), in particular the final movement of his Third Piano Sonata. Like the present work, that movement by Ullmann is also a set of variations (on a theme by Mozart) that incorporates a fugue near the end. In addition, some of the later variations of the present work attempt to incorporate some of Ullmann's musical language.

In Taoist thought, the number ten thousand stands for the multiplicity beyond measure that makes up the universe. Imagine all things that make up this multiplicity in motion--moving without plan or reason yet each complementing all the rest. What happens is neither expected nor unexpected. It happens and we supply our own meaning out of our own experience.

The Shriek of Silence tells the story of the poet's journey and thought process of realizing what true silence encompasses.

Rush of Air was inspired by sitting next to Tracey Rush at an ICF event in which we heard numerous flute solos. After so many selections we joked about the obligatory flutter tonguing and key clicks and then brain stormed on the craziest thing you could do with a flute and still be musical.  And so Rush of Air was seeded and named in the back of my mind. It became a serious work only after one of my mentors laughed at my idea for the cyclone.  It is still a work in progress as I have not yet written the movement with key clicks.

It couldn’t be done is a piece for mezzo-soprano and piano using a poem by Edgar Guest. I chose the poem because it is motivational and I wanted to spend my time with words that see important. I used some special techniques that Lisa said she likes to use …. spoken dialogue, vocal glissando (used where the poet starts to do the things he thought he couldn’t do) and extremes of her range (imitating a man’s range on important phrases). The piano also uses glissandi and uses slap strings because it seemed cool. For the piano part, I was inspired by musical patterns from Dmitri Kabalevsky and Friederich Burgmuller, composers whose music I have studied.

Nocturne in 4-3, for cello and piano, takes, as its point of departure, certain elements of the Chopin nocturne. First, the composition is indeed atmospheric and evocative. Second, it features a long-breathed melodic line. Finally, it employs an undulating, repetitive accompaniment figure. After a brief introduction, the primary melodic material is heard first in the cello, and is then passed between the cello and piano. Various motives drawn from this melody are then developed before and during energetic and aggressive musical passages that alternate with reflective sections. The melody then returns late in the piece, followed by a coda. Each of Chopin’s twenty-one nocturnes is identified by a number and/or a key: “Nocturne in E-flat Major”, for example. While Nocturne in 4-3 is not tonally-based, it is indeed centric music, drawing upon a source tone row that makes heavy use of Set Class 4-3 (the 0134 tetrachord)—hence the second part of the title for this work. Intervalic patterns drawn from this tetrachord saturate the piece in both obvious and subtle ways.

like that time is a reflection on moments of tension/anger within an intimate relationship. Some moments are petty, while others reflect deeper problems. Likewise, the tone of this piece wavers between light and dark; however, I would say that, overall, this piece sits more comfortably in the darkness. like that time was written as part of the Iowa Composers Forum Commissioning Project. It was written for and is dedicated to Lisa Neher and Gustavo do Carmo.

Psalm 90 is based on the first two verses of Psalm 90:
      Lord, You have been our dwelling place
      In all generations.
      Before the mountains were brought forth,
      Or ever You had formed the earth and the world,
      Even from everlasting to everlasting,
      You are God.
There are shifting tonalities in the piece. Dissonant atonal passages resolve to expressive tonal parts. Extreme registers on the piano often occur.

A few years ago I wandered the streets of a tiny French village ... only 300 people and no stores, just a small collection of houses, a few farms, an ancient church and a school. My sixth-great-grandfather walked these streets ... we walk past the house built by a distant great uncle, with his name and date ... Hans Peter Bieber 1717 ... carved above the front door.
    This village in Alsace-Lorraine, near the German border with a decidedly mixed French-German heritage, holds secrets. They hang in the air, unspoken, not even whispered, but sensed nonetheless. I feel voices calling to me from behind the houses, down by the river Isle, voices dancing on the sparkling water carrying their mysteries to eternity.
    In this charming French village with flowers hanging in window boxes, cattle grazing in the distance, a church isolated on the hillside and neat graves in the cemetery, we dine with a cousin who has a family tree that covers nine generations. The family chart spills off both ends of the dining table. Buried among the births and deaths the voices start to emerge .... a child who died by the river, falling from a tree landing on a sharp pole ... soldiers who fought under the enemy flag to save the lives of their mothers ... a village liberated twice from its enemies in one week.
    We perform a concert, we dine with the mayor and other town’s people (essentially all cousins) in a converted barn, and then we depart. But there is a reluctance to leave that I don’t understand. Except that the voices still call, spirits from the past pleading with me to listen to their stories and release them so they too can dance their way to eternity.
 

The simple search to learn about my great-grandparents landed my husband and me in remote Slovakia, driving to Majerka, a town that has officially ceased to exist. Apprehension reigns. The church only holds worship once a year, in a remembrance service, and we will play the organ for it. Stories had reached us about the village burning in 1941 and a subsequent ethnic cleansing ... would I find anything that would tell me about my great-grandparents, who left in the 1880s?
    Our drive takes us through flood ravaged land, on a road sometimes paved, sometimes nearly gone. We pass destroyed bridges, wondering if we will indeed reach the town. At each obstacle fears rise, then subside and the journey resumes. We drive through more small mountain towns and then enter Majerka, the end of the road, passing houses of gypsies, who took Majerka after the Germans left.
    The church looms on the right. Plain, like a white elephant, it stands as a lone reminder of the way life once was. Maria, the pastor, disappears, searching for someone to let us in. Disappointment seeps into my bones. No steeple, just a simple cross on the peaked roof. No apparent family connections here ... all disappeared to unknown locations when “cleansed” after the war. And if the original church burned, what will be the connection with my great-grandparents? None? Did I lead us on a senseless trek?
    Finally, Maria reappears with a short, squat man in tow. Ervin escorts us into the church and I gasp. I turn to Maria, “Was all this built during the war?” “Oh, no,” she replies. “Only the roof of the church burned. Everything else here is original.” I stand in astounded silence and awe. Amidst peeling paint is a stunning altar, gold statues, and on the walls, in German script, “A Mighty Fortress is our God.” We are filled with the awesome sense of history and God’s eternal presence.

Lancelot and Guinevere was written over the course of two weeks in the late Summer of 2016 with Tennyson’s poem of the same name and a few of my favorite paintings in mind. Like much of my favorite music, it is nothing more or less than a bunch of pretty tunes and pretty chords meant to evoke the feeling of being in love.