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Located in the USA
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- Gunther Schuller
Ohio River Reflections (1999)
- Associated Music Publishers Inc (World)
Programme Note
Composer note:
Ohio River Reflections is dedicated to the memory of horn player and teacher, James Benjamin Jones, who spent much of his life along the Ohio River and its tributaries.
A quiet, slow-moving undulating figure, accompanied by a dark cello line, set the mood of the first movement, marked Lento desolato. Soon horn and violin join cello, leading to a thrice-reiterated yearning phrase in the two strings. A modified, embellished recapitulation brings the movement to a serene close, with the cello's sighing phrase answer — done last time " this time by the horn, but questioning.
By contrast with the first movement's serene mood, the second movement is bristling with virtuosic energy, the thematic material being constantly tossed around among the four instruments. A sudden relaxation of the tempo leads to a waltz section, led suavely by the muted horn. With a pileup of huge chords in the piano the pace quickens again, the movement coming eventually to a frenetic "sudden death" ending.
The third movement, marked Serenely, dream-like consists of, in a stream-of-consciousness manner, mainly sustained, singing sounds, interspersed by prolonged silences. A brief heightening of tension interrupts the quiescent mood, only to fall back to the opening dream-like atmosphere, as if suspended in time. Chime notes, evoking distant church bells, are the last sounds heard, hanging in the air, fading into the final silence.
— Gunther Schuller
Ohio River Reflections is dedicated to the memory of horn player and teacher, James Benjamin Jones, who spent much of his life along the Ohio River and its tributaries.
A quiet, slow-moving undulating figure, accompanied by a dark cello line, set the mood of the first movement, marked Lento desolato. Soon horn and violin join cello, leading to a thrice-reiterated yearning phrase in the two strings. A modified, embellished recapitulation brings the movement to a serene close, with the cello's sighing phrase answer — done last time " this time by the horn, but questioning.
By contrast with the first movement's serene mood, the second movement is bristling with virtuosic energy, the thematic material being constantly tossed around among the four instruments. A sudden relaxation of the tempo leads to a waltz section, led suavely by the muted horn. With a pileup of huge chords in the piano the pace quickens again, the movement coming eventually to a frenetic "sudden death" ending.
The third movement, marked Serenely, dream-like consists of, in a stream-of-consciousness manner, mainly sustained, singing sounds, interspersed by prolonged silences. A brief heightening of tension interrupts the quiescent mood, only to fall back to the opening dream-like atmosphere, as if suspended in time. Chime notes, evoking distant church bells, are the last sounds heard, hanging in the air, fading into the final silence.
— Gunther Schuller