Points of View
Item
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Score title
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Points of View
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Composer
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Thea Musgrave
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Program note
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Points of View is a musical work about the different musical elements, which are personified by soloists from the orchestra, all unifying at the end in a passionate climax.
The first section, ‘Mysterious’, features a solo horn and also establishes tonality (B flat), texture and harmony. The harmonies are often chordal six-note clusters and they are an important binding, articulating and textural element throughout the work.
A solo trumpet joins the solo horn and, as the chordal clusters disappear into the stratosphere, initiates the rhythm of a light-hearted scherzo – ‘Lively’. The trumpet’s rhythmic figure is echoed and developed by the winds.
The solo oboe and cor anglais now introduce a very lyrical melody in falling thirds, ‘Sensuous’. The chordal clusters as well as the trumpet’s rhythmic figure eventually reappear to accompany this melodic theme and then the violins passionately respond by taking it over – ‘Passionato’ – all the elements thus unifying to culminate in the coda.
These musical elements could also perhaps be described in non-musical terms as ‘imagination’ (solo horn), ‘action’ (solo trumpet), ‘emotion’ (solo oboe and cor anglais) which eventually combine in the climax (violins).
© Thea Musgrave
Thea Musgrave