l ‘ abîme
Piece Information
Instrumentation: flute, clarinet, horn, trumpet, perc, piano, violin, cello, playback
Duration: ~29 minutes
Date: © 2019
Commissioned by:
Program note:
L’Abîme is a piece which musically depicts the world’s inevitably rising sea levels. In 2019, I encountered a set of three paintings by the New England painter Winslow Homer. These three pieces struck me with their dangerous and brutal depictions of the ocean meeting theland. Here the sea was an entirely different beast than that more common to musical tradition. I set out to reinterpret past music about the sea, to suit the current sense of foreboding that arises when we consider our future relationship with this unstoppable force.
L’Abîme is partly inspired by 3 Paintings by Winslow Homer | from left to right: Northeaster, Cannon Rock, Maine Coast
L’Abîme accomplishes this reinterpretation of ‘oceanic’ music, by engaging directly with Debussy’s La Mer. The piece’s three movements use Homer’s three paintings (Northeaster, Cannon Rock, and Maine Coast) to inform their atmosphere and structure. But as the music progresses, it is gradually engulfed by material from Debussy’s La Mer. What begins simply as a musical influence, with Debussy’s motivic content and pentatonic language bleeding into my own, grows throughout the piece into something that overwhelms the content native to L’Abîme. By the second movement the music pivots back and forth without preparation to direct quotes from Debussy’s work, gradually doing so with greater frequency. In the finale, pre-recorded excerpts of even more ‘ocean music’ play atop the live ensemble, piling up to create an ever-heightening wave of sound. The piece ends at the crest of this sonic wave, with its catastrophic effects yet to be felt.