Instrumentation: Wind Quintet
Duration: 7:35
Commission: Chamber Music Conference and Composers’ Forum of the East, Inc. 2019
Premiere: August 10, 2019
Chamber Music Conference and Composers’ Forum of the East (Bennington)
Program Note:
Cinqchronie celebrates the timbral contrasts and combinations of the wind quintet, with the individual color of each voice as well as varied blends. From the very beginning, each instrument hands a single pitch to another, showcasing their own voices. Throughout, you will hear the phenomenon of streaming, used by African and Baroque music. Streaming creates new rhythms by changing the relationships between the instruments in time, timbre, and pitch. Cinqchronie has two perceptible tonal centers that move from one to another without a formal return to the starting point. The piece both opens and closes on a single pitch, and yet they are different. In the beginning, each instrument introduces itself and its timbral personality. At the end, having gone through a fast-moving adventure together, the ensemble comes together on a single pitch that gradually changes as the sound of the ensemble fades into a single remaining voice. Cinqchronie was commissioned by the Chamber Music Conference and Composers’ Forum of the East, Inc., 2019. –JS