Weft

recording credits: Alexis Loveland, Jake Urquhart, Bryan Benson, Catherine Shulby, bassoons

Instrumentation: four bassoons
Duration: 5 min.
Year: 2019

Movements:
I. Lithe
II. Tumbling

Program Note:
Weft is primarily an experiment in musical texture, a study of motion. Each movement explores motion and connectivity through the interwoven structure of its voices. Melody and harmony in Weft are incidental: always in service to the texture, giving it life, breath, and color. All melodic and harmonic content is derived from transformations of the melody to I’ve Got Rhythm by George Gershwin. It is used in transposition, retrograde, and inversion to provide a musical skeleton for the piece.
I. Lithe evokes the movements of a dancer: one whose mastery of their own great strength allows them to transfigure it into elegant grace and delicate fluidity. In this movement three bassoons must act as one voice—exhibiting mastery over their immense combined power to lilt effortlessly through a dynamic and flowing line—while the remaining player soars buoyantly above them, carried aloft by the energy of the other three.
II. Tumbling is a tumultuous scene of incessant motion: never stopping or slowing, but constantly revolving, stirring, and spinning. The movement begins with a clear statement of its structure, but as the material passes between each voice the parts become increasingly interlocked, gradually mingling together into a constantly shifting, rolling, knot held together by imperceptible structure.