Apple Fantasy

Joseph Sowa

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Quartet

2020

13 min.

Cello

Clarinet

Flute

Violin

More Details

Program Notes: Apple Fantasy is a single, continuous movement composed of six, distinct sections: (i) First-bite Crunch, (ii) Orchard Breeze, (iii) Harvest Sunset, (iv) Baking, Bubbling, Steaming, (v) Cider Press, and (vi) Dew-covered Bushels. The piece and its sections take their names from the images I imagined while composing the piece. They evolved in parallel with the musical material as it grew and the piece took shape. It seemed to me that the different sections were depicting a full, 24-hour day, with “First- bite Crunch” happening in the morning, “Orchard Breeze” happening in the afternoon, and so on until the next morning (“Dew-covered Bushels”). Musically, the entire piece grows out of the opening slow trill to create different grooves and moods while maintaining the sixteenth-note surface rhythm (except for the first half of “Bubbling, Baking, Steaming,” which maintains the ostinato gesture but as eighth notes). Many of the apple-related images I saw in the music were inspired by the various shapes and sounds of the ostinato. The open- ing snap is the “first-bite crunch.” The shift from simple to compound meter felt like a cool “orchard breeze.” In shifting the ostinato to eighth notes in “Baking, Bubbling, Steaming,” the music felt like it was seething. In contrast to these rhythm-inspired titles, “Cider Press,” was named after the continual twisting and tightening of its harmony. Likewise, “Harvest Sunset” was inspired by that section’s me- lodic flourishing, as if suddenly the sky and the apples reflected the same crimson red.
Recording Notes: Performed in a live stream during the pandemic, it has yet to be performed live
Record Label: n/a
Ensemble Name: Hub New Music