Reaching for the Moon for Solo Flute Flute Solo - Sheet Music

SKU: PE.EP14599

ISBN 9790014138257.

In 1987/1988 Gloria Coates wrote a solo for alto recorder in collaboration with the recorder player Dörte Nienstedt. Extreme dynamic increases, simultaneous playing and singing, hard accents, fluttering tonguing, multiphonics, upward glissandi and vibrato go beyond the usual framework of music for recorder and led to the title 'Breacking through'.

The version for transverse flute was written with Edmund Wächter (premiere 19 October 1988). The main aim was to utilise the greater range of the transverse flute and to transfer the expressive elements. Glissandi and multiphonics in particular demanded new fingerings. As no specific sounds were required for the multiphonics, but the additional notes were to determine the colour and expression of the main tone, there were many possibilities here, which the composer had played for two days in various combinations until she finally found her favoured sounds in this empirical approach. As it was ultimately an independent piece, it was also to be given its own title and after the first performances took place under various names ('Breaking Through III', 'Breaking out'), Reaching for the Moon finally emerged.

Two additional versions with tape were also heard at the premiere: in 'Fiori', the flute enters into a dialogue with the perking and chattering of the cockatiel of a friend, Princess Maria Josepha of Saxony. And in 'Fiori and the Princess', the princess also takes an active part in the 'conversation'. Here it becomes clear that Reaching for the Moon

The opening motif (theme) serves as a formative element, which changes in parts and runs through the entire piece in fragments. A twelve-tone row with a song-like rhythm and a 'quasi-sex chord' in a wide register at the beginning corresponds to listening habits, from which one is immediately torn away by fluttering tonguing.