Timepiece

Description

• Composer: Gillingham
• Publisher: C. Alan Publications

Timepiece includes three movements for Piano and Horn duet. The movements evoke three images of time: Time Past, Time Suspended, and Time Unleashed. In the first movement, the music alludes to ancient, archaic, and primeval times by using harmonic structures of open fifths and fourths.Time Suspended seeks to exploit time which is immovable, forward or backward, by centering the movement around the pitch D and the two tones above and below it. Time Unleashed evokes a sort of “fanfare and flourish” style within a furiously fast-paced tempo in compound meter.

Program Notes

Timepiece was commissioned by and dedicated to the Horn Duo of Andrew Pelletier and Bruce Bonnell. The movements evoke three images of time: Time Past, Time Suspended, and Time Unleashed. In the first movement, the music alludes to ancient, archaic, and primeval times by using harmonic structures of open fifths and fourths. The melodic source for the movement is the song Reis Glorios (c.1200) by Guiraut de Borneth, using only the refrain. (“Glorious King, light of truth and splendor/Almighty God, Lord, if it please you.) The movement begins solemnly using the tune in augmentation. The music progresses to an almost raucous and primeval state using the tune in many guises of rhythm, meter and texture. A return to the calmness of the beginning closes the movement.

Time Suspended seeks to exploit time which is immovable, forward or backward, by centering the movement around the pitch D and the two tones above and below it. Although the pitches are displaced by octaves throughout the movement, there becomes a growing frustration and repetitiveness of the drone of these five pitches alluding to time being literally frozen. The pitch is continually reinforced by the surrounding four pitches and it seems that there is no relief or movement from this center. Eventually, however, there is a resolution to the harmony of a D Major-minor seventh chord by adding the pitches of F# and A. The horns, who could not find relief from the five-pitch drone, now sing a more lyrical tune within the new harmony. Alas, the D-7 offers only a need to resolve, which is never fulfilled, and there is an inevitable return to the nightmare of the five pitches and a resolution to the “frozen” tonal center.

Time Unleashed evokes a sort of “fanfare and flourish” style within a furiously fast-paced tempo in compound meter. After a rousing introduction with fanfare-like passages in the horns, a celebratory and dramatic main theme is presented by Horn 1. As the title suggests, there are moments where time does seem to be “unleashed,” and before the repeat of the theme by Horn 2, there is an insertion of a 7/8 bar before returning to 6/8. A series of episodes follow in which the theme is developed and morphed with more “unleashing” of time by using hemiola and polyrhythms. The harmony of the movement is also somewhat free and “unleashed” as well, using augmented ninth chords, cluster sonorities, and good old unabashed tonality. All the wildness of the movement comes to a halt and the movement is interrupted by a rather introspective interlude working out the thematic material in slow motion. This retransitions to the original clamor of the movement and the horns and piano conclude in grand fanfare.