Conversation with the Composer

Ronald Bruce Smith discusses his new work Four Movements, which will receive its world premiere on February 28:

Each of the Four Movements has a descriptive title and an instruction to the players (for example, the first movement Waves is indicated “lightly, shimmering”), and they each create a unique musical image. How do the individual movements fit into the concept of the piece as a whole?

Unlike other multiple movement compositions I have written, there is not a programmatic connection between the movements. The aim then was to create contrast and balance among the movements. Regarding the movements themselves, the first one is principally centered around the violin part and, for a good amount of it, the other instruments are either reinforcing the violin part or are working off of it in some way. The title of this movement, Waves, has to do with the shapes of the lines (I believe one can even get a visual sense of this from looking at the score). The “lightly, shimmering” is both a performance indication as well as a representation of how I imagined the color of the sound to being analogous to light playing on water. The opening of the movement begins with a ripple. It then moves towards waves of larger amplitudes that gradually subside into a gentler though multi-hued contour that is constructed through the ancient device of hocket.

The second movement is titled Caoidh which is the Scottish Gaelic word for lament. Around the time that I composed the work, I had been reacquainting myself with the Highland Clearances, a very dark chapter in Scottish history. Among many things, it made me think again about immigration and how dire the circumstances must be for any group of people to uproot themselves from their homeland in order to move to a distant unknown land and an uncertain future. At the same time, I had been reacquainting myself with whistle music from both Irish and Scottish Gaelic cultures. The most accomplished whistle players can add an enormous range of expression to their playing through ornamentation, by fluttering their fingers over the sound holes producing an amplitude vibrato, and by releasing the energy they are putting into the instrument creating microtonal slides. Taking this as a cue, in order to add to the expressiveness of the music and to the anguish I wanted to convey, I began to employ microtones to the melodic material. The microtones were written intuitively rather than from a predetermined system.

The third movement, Scherzo, is obviously lighter in nature. It is a moderately fast composition that is built on two simultaneously recurring rhythmic cycles, one in quadruple divisions of the pulse and the other in triple divisions of the pulse. Each of the cycles is constructed from smaller, asymmetrical subdivisions using twos and threes. Toward the end of this movement, things seem to fall apart rhythmically and otherwise.

The fourth movement, November, is something of a reflection on that month of the year as experienced in northern regions. Unlike the earlier months of the fall during which the trees are filled with the rich colors of the changing leaves and the light in the sky can still contain some warm hues, in November the leaves are gone leaving only the limbs of the trees while the light in the sky begins to carry colder hues. November landscapes are a strong reminder of the transient nature of our existence on earth.

How did you arrive at the instrumentation of Four Movements, including your selection of the percussion? What are some of the non-traditional techniques used?

The instrumentation was arrived at after a conversation with Adam Frey, who was responsible for this commission and to whom, along with the SFCMP, I’ve dedicated the work. I wanted to use an ensemble with a good amount of color since I had spent the previous several years composing either solo pieces with electronics or pieces for timbrally homogeneous ensembles such as string quartet. It seemed logical then, and practical, to lean toward the ubiquitous new music ensemble of flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, violin and cello. Since I already have a couple of pieces for that particular ensemble in my catalogue, I decided to replace the piano with the harp. This immediately gave the ensemble a very different color. Besides the range of colors that the performer can get from the harp through the wide array of techniques they develop for performing notes with their fingers, harpists are also able to elicit a large range of unusual colors from the instrument. Some of these techniques include making thundering sounds through various percussive ways of striking the strings with the hands, by making whistling sounds by sliding a finger up and down on a string, or by striking the string with objects like a metal rod, wire brushes or percussion mallets. I have employed several of these techniques in Four Movements. Moreover, the harp, which in one form or another can be found throughout the world, allows one to reference the music of many different cultures.

While contrast was a large concern for the four movements, one thing that ties different movements together is the percussion. In the first movement, the marimba is used almost entirely throughout except toward the end where one hears a glockenspiel and then a snare drum being played with wire brushes. It is paired with the third movement which begins and ends with the snare drum being performed with wire brushes. This one also relies heavily on the marimba and it employs a couple of woodblocks, in order to fill out rhythmic materials at times, as well as a flexatone at the very end. In the second movement, the percussion that is used is a vibraphone and bass drum played with brushes. The vibraphone is paired with the harp. In the fourth movement, those two instruments are also used in much the same way though the percussionist is also required to play a few notes on the harmonica. I used two harmonicas in a percussion ensemble and electronics piece that I wrote a few years ago for the Manhattan School of Music Percussion Ensemble. I later had some ideas about using it to create harmonies with, perhaps, bass clarinet multiphonics which is what I wound up doing here. One other thing about the second and fourth movements is that the harpist is required to play a large tam-tam from time to time.

A somewhat unusual thing in the instrumentation is that toward the end of the third movement the flutist and the clarinetist are required to spray compressed air canisters. While I had been thinking of a way to augment the sound of some of the breath noises that occur at the end of this movement, I received news that the Los Angeles composer Arthur Jarvinen had passed away. I did not know Art but one of his pieces, Egyptian Two-Step, which I heard on CD some years ago, made an impression on me. In it, Jarvinen uses the sound of the spraying of aerosol cans to express rhythmic ideas. This then is a little homage to Arthur Jarvinen and his richly inventive imagination.

Four Movements was commissioned by SFCMP. Did the fact that our ensemble will present the premiere of the piece to an audience here in the Bay Area inform your compositional process?

I began attending SFCMP concerts in 1990 when I was graduate student at UC Berkeley and I have had the good fortune of having had the ensemble perform three of my works over the past 15 seasons. I am very familiar with the ensemble, and the high quality and dedication that they bring to their performances. It is one of the most highly respected ensembles in the country in this regard as well as for the immense breadth of the repertoire they perform. So, what I knew was that I did not have to make any compromises and that the SFCMP ensemble would be able to bring to life what I had in mind.

Contemporary music audiences in the Bay Area are among the most knowledgeable in the country. The fact that a number of highly adventurous ensembles, orchestras and presenters are able to thrive there is a testament to this. So, for me it is a real pleasure to know that the first audiences for this composition will be in the Bay Area. I lived in the Bay Area for about a decade and it is always special for me to return and to engage with the people and the culture there.

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Contemporary Insights: Music and Conversation
Ronald Bruce Smith will participate in an informal preview of Four Movements, including audience discussion and a wine reception afterward.
Sunday, February 27 at 4:30 pm
ODC Theater at The Dance Commons, San Francisco
Tickets available at the door ($10 regular, $5 student/senior)
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Tradition, Influence, Evolution
Program includes the world premiere of Four Movements.
Monday, February 28 at 8:00 pm
Herbst Theatre, San Francisco
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