Springsongs (1978)

Brass Quintet – 8 mins.
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Program Note

Springsongs (1978) was composed by a composer in love with the music of Machaut, Josquin, Bach, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Xenakis, and Rock’n’Roll. He considers himself fortunate to live in an era when all these marvelous sounds and tunes and gestures are available at the push of a button, and when composers have lost their inhibitions about wearing their hearts and roots on their sleeves. He is also aware of the esthetic dangers of imitation and self-indulgence, realizing that a piece of music is pointless unless it is stamped with the composer’s own personal twists of language, sense of syntax and context, his/her own world-outlook.

Springsongs was also composed by a composer intrigued by the magic of musical performance — how notes, lines, rhythms, textures, seemingly abstract musical functions, can come to life in the hands of skilled and understanding performers, and implant themselves in the consciousness of the listener.

Springsongs was commissioned by the Memphis in May Fine Arts Festival and was written in Memphis in the spring when all of creation seems to burst forth with brightness, exuberance, and vitality. At the same time, news reports were full of their usual tales of wars, mass murders, and various natural catastrophes.