PURCHASE OPTIONS

PROGRAM NOTES

This work combines the third and fourth movements of Symphony No. 2. The third movement, The Old Man’s Song, opens with a song, which is the minor version of the Song of the Mountain from Como Canons. While on a drive through Wyoming, I saw a large, lonely mountain towering over a small town. I asked myself what the mountain would sing if it came to life. Suddenly, I had my first vision of a mountain singing this melody. 

A month later, I was driving toward the mountain range outside of Glacier National Park. I asked the same question of the range, and the choir of mountains sang their song, an extended double canonic fugue, the first of its kind. It is a double fugue where each entrance of the subject is its own two-voice canon at the unison. The first fugue is on the Song of the Mountain joined by a fugue on the Song of the Sky, its mirror image. It is a fitting reflection of a spectacular Montana sunset that always happens where the mountains meet the sky.

Como Canons, the final movement, is named after Lake Como, a beautiful lake in the middle of the mountains in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley. The Como peaks are recognizable from a distance as the “three sisters, “ three adjacent mountain peaks forming a sort of crown. The opening features a prolation canon on the canonic motive from the second movement, followed by the Song of the Mountain. The “cloud” canon that follows uses the motive from the second movement, which, combined with the brass, is its own prolation canon. The middle section is the inversion of the second part of the first movement, and the ending combines all of the canons into a triumphant finale.

GRADE 6

Instrumentation: Picc., 2 Fl., 2 Ob., 3 Cl., Bs. Cl., Cb. Cl. (Opt. Ca. Cl.), Bsn., Cbsn. (Opt.), Sop. Sx., 2 Alt. Sx., Ten. Sx., Bar. Sx., 3 Tpt., 4 Hn., 2 Tbn., Bs. Tbn., Euph., Tba., Dbl. Bs., Timp., 5+ Perc.