Rhymes with Silver Set for Quintet by Lou Harrison Chamber Music - Sheet Music

SKU: PR.620637900

UPC: 680160432165.

Rhymes with Silver is a dance score commissioned by Mark Morris, whose company premiered it in 1997 with Yo-Yo Ma as cellist. Mark had already choreographed several of my works, including Grand Duo and Homage to Pacifica and this request was for a piece specifically for his company, his musical ensemble and for the virtuosity of cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Mark is a trained musician, which was very important to me in the writing of this work. It allowed me to feel the music kinetically, as he does, and also allowed me to use rhythmic shapes with confidence in Mark's musical expertise. In that respect, I had quite a bit of structure within which to work as well as the fact that Mark tours with a set musical ensemble (violin, viola, cello, piano, and percussion). All of the material in the twelve movements that make up the piece is new, though I did borrow the “Gigue and Musette” from 1943. I recall that this piece was written during my Los Angeles period, when I was studying with Arnold Schoenberg, and that he liked the piece. “In Honor of Prince Kantemir” is dedicated to a Romanian prince who maintained a palace in Constantinople. Himself a composer, he had an immense enthusiasm for Ottoman music, and was the first to write a major theoretical work about it, which is still in use. Several of the other movements, for instance Romantic Waltz, Foxtrot, and Round Dance, were written specifically for Mark's musicality and knowledge of these forms and rhythms. The Allegro utilizes a particular method which I absorbed from Henry Cowell in the late 1930s. During Henry's San Quentin imprisonment he wrote "elastic" forms and was commissioned by Marion van Tuyl of Mills College for an adjustable piece for use here on campus as well as touring. Another example of a "kit" is Ariadne, for flute and percussion, written for my friend Eva Soltes, which was premiered at Mills College in 1987 on my 70th birthday. – Lou Harrison.