Flame Under Flame. (Original Composition) (A Symphony in Three Movements).

Abstract

Flame under Flame is a composition of approximately 17 minutes' duration, set in three movements, and scored for an orchestra of double woodwinds (including alternates), brass, percussion, piano, harp and strings. The work is scored so as to emphasize the separate identities of the sections of the orchestra, often with a layer of different music associated with each. Hence the title suggests layers of musical meaning as well as the flickering quality of rapidly changing orchestral colors. The overall gestural shape of the work is as follows: a massive, texture-oriented first movement Allegro is followed by a lyrical, thinly-scored Adagio, and the work finishes with a wedge-shaped Presto which, however, ends quietly. Structurally, the first movement is a large, three-part form with coda, the second a free song form with woodwind solos ritualistically punctuated by metallic percussion, and the third a scherzo-like rondo. Technically the work exhibits elements of symmetry, especially in the use of retrograde (e.g. III, mm.177-197 are the retrograde of III, mm.3-23). Isorhythm is also exploited in all three movements, a notable example being the 30-beat unit of three-part counterpoint beginning in the strings at m.70 of the first movement, the rhythm of which is used throughout the next 36 measures with modifications achieved by means of inversion, retrograde, and permutation by multiplication (M5). The pitch language is derived from the 013469 hexachord, first stated vertically at the beginning of the work, and used extensively as a verticality and as a harmonic background in the first and last movements. This hexachord contains the subset 016 which is prominent in all three movements in harmonic and melodic contexts. The combination of 016 with its inversion creates the 0167 set and this is used to begin and end the last movement and generate the pitch materials of its triplet layers. The title, Flame under Flame, is drawn from The Everlasting Voices, a poem by W. B. Yeats first published in 1899.