Bright Blue Music

Michael Torke

This article is a stub. If you can help add information to it,
please join the WRP and visit the FAQ (left sidebar) for information.

General Info

Year: 1985 / 2017
Duration: c. 9:20
Difficulty: (see Ratings for explanation)
Original Medium: Orchestra
Publisher: Unknown
Cost: Score and Parts - Unknown

For availability information, see Discussion tab, above.

Instrumentation

(Needed - please join the WRP if you can help.)

Errata

None discovered thus far.

Program Notes

In my last two pieces I employ the technique of breaking up and reassembling the sixteenth note pulse in 4/4 time, in the context of a single general sweep from beginning to end. I wanted to continue this development in Bright Blue Music, but I felt unsettled about the language needed to employ these ideas.

Inspired by Wittgenstein's ideas that meaning is not in words themselves but in the grammar of words used, I conceived of a parallel in musical terms: harmonies in themselves do not contain any meaning, rather, musical meaning results only in the way harmonies are used. Harmonic language is then, in a sense, inconsequential. If the choice of harmony is arbitrary, why not then use tonic and dominant chords – the simplest, most direct, and – for me – the most pleasurable? Once this decision was made and put in the back of my mind, an unexpected freedom of expression followed. With the simplest means, my musical emotions and impulses were free to guide me. The feeling of working was exuberant; I would leave my outdoor studio, and the trees and bushes seemed to dance, and the sky seemed bright blue.

That bright blue color contributed towards the piece's title, but in conjunction with another personal association. The key of the piece, D major (from which there is no true modulation), has been the color for me since I was five years old.

Bright Blue Music continues the compositional development of my past two pieces, but does so with a newfound freedom and lyricism, and a new language: tonality. Bright Blue Music for Orchestra was composed between July 18 and September 1 1985, under the commission of the New York Youth Symphony Orchestra.

Bright Blue Music for Orchestra was composed between July 18 and September 1 1985, under the commission of the New York Youth Symphony Orchestra. This transcription for wind ensemble was completed by Daniel Kirk in 2017 to complete doctoral wind conducting degree requirements at Michigan State University.

- Program Note by composer and transcriber

Media

(Needed - please join the WRP if you can help.)

State Ratings

None discovered thus far.

Performances

To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project

Michigan State University (East Lansing) Wind Symphony (Daniel Kirk, conductor) – 29 April 2017

Works for Winds by This Composer

Adjustable Wrench (1989)
Bliss (2003/2013)
Bright Blue Music (arr. Kirk) (1985)
Four Wheel Drive (2004)
Grand Central Station (2000)
Javelin (tr. Patterson) (1994/2000)
The Kiss (2006)
May, June and July (1995-2012)
- May and June (2012)
- July (1995)
Mojave (2010)
Overnight Mail (1997)
Rapture (2001)
Rust (1989)
Saxophone Concerto for Soprano Saxophone and Wind Ensemble (1993/2012)
Telephone Book (1985/1995)
Three Scenes from Tahiti (tr. Leonard) (2009/2021)
Tiger in the Sun (2011)
Torque Series (2012)
Two Girls on the Beach (2005)
Vanada (1984)

Resources

"Bright Blue Music." Boosey & Hawkes Accessed 17 April 2017
Daniel Kirk, personal correspondence, April 2017