The “moment” we’ve all been waiting for happens exactly half way through the movement, marked by the first proper chord in the piece. Stark, raw, and glistening, you won’t miss it.
Nevertheless, as soon as “it” arrives, it too begins to shift in and out of focus. We attempt to apprehend the moment, from several angles, yet it remains just beyond our grasp. Our subjective experience has transformed the purity of the original moment: our seeing it has indeed changed it. The moment has passed as it slips into our memory—not exactly as it happened but close enough, perhaps.
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Moment Musical (2013)
for flute and violin
Duration: 2:30 minutes
Premiere: October 16, 2013
Constance Volk (flute) and Austin Wulliman (violin)
Program Note:
In this duo, I took the idea of the “musical moment,” a genre intimately explored by Schubert and Rachmaninov among others, quite literally. In human experience, a moment is usually not a singular, freestanding occurrence. It may be preceded by anticipation, and it may take time to sink in. These two contingent experiences, along with the moment itself, suggested a simple form for the piece: anticipation, moment, and absorption.
The work begins with a hazy puff of pitches: our consciousness waking up from standby-mode into a state of awareness. Our attention takes on several forms, ranging from a palpable alertness to fuzzier states of mind as the two instruments attempt to agree on a single pitch, with varying degrees of success. A rise in volume and pitch accompanies an intensifying sense of awareness, continually shifting in and out of focus.
Moment musical (2013)
By Dylan Schneider
