Mirage

Description

Like many composers throughout the history of music, I consider my relationships with certain performers to be among the special treasures of my existence.xa0 Of these, my long association with members of the Da Capo Chamber Players, individually and as a group, has been especially rewarding and happy in a great many ways. Mirage is the fourth work written on commission by Da Capo, this time in celebration of the group’s twentieth anniversary.xa0 Because the other three involved only clarinet and cello, as solos and a duo, I chose for this latest work, dedicated to the group, to include all five members, assigning the principal “tune” this time to an amplified alto flute.xa0 (The amplification is used here not because of balance considerations, but for its timbral coloring). In one movement, Mirage’s eleven minutes are shaped into an asymmetrical, loosely structured five-part arch form.xa0 Throughout, I aimed for a fee flowing, yet intense, at times incantational style of delivery.xa0 Relationships between instruments span the gamut from polyphonic to heterophonic to one pivotal unison phrase occurring about four-fifths of the way through the work—a phrase emblematic of the entire composition.xa0 Harmonically and melodically the work reminds one, I think, of modes associated with Middle Eastern music.xa0 These become chromatically saturated in areas, especially in the dense, central section of the arch form. Mirage was begun in the summer of 1990 and composed mainly during the month of December, 1990. —Shulamit Ran