Thomas Clark – composer / digital artist

Tag: Hukvaldy

  • Animated Landscapes

    A Musical Sketchbook

    A collection of eight new scores for chamber orchestra with the same orchestration (4 winds, 3 brass, timpani, percussion, and strings), the musical sketches are Impressionistic soundscapes rather than symphonic narratives in form. The Sketchbook also includes extensive performance, analytic and program notes.

    Read the entire ANIMATED LANDSCAPES Sketchbook

    Each sketch paints vivid harmonic and instrumental colors in simple to complex textures of dynamically evolving tempo and pace. Titles are evocative but not determinant for the development of the musical ideas. My original 1971 orchestral composition titled ANIMATED LANDSCAPES first explored this musical approach in what was then the prevailing Midwestern composers’ large-ensemble moving-sound-mass style of the 1960s and ’70s. My harmonic and contrapuntal craft has matured enormously since then!

    Appearing first in this 50-years-later Animated Landscapes Sketchbook for small orchestra, Appalachian Autumn pays homage to Copland’s 1944 masterpiece, Appalachian Spring. In my composition studies in the 1970s, I was fascinated by Appalachian Spring the ballet as originally scored for only 12 orchestral instruments. This original scoring was a masterpiece of orchestral painting blended with the clear contrapuntal lines of chamber music, highlighting each instrument’s colorful voice. My now developed harmonic sensibilities also resemble Copland’s open, bold sonorities.

    Appalachian Autumn
    Amber Atoms in the Fire Gleaming; Yin Yang (Air); Otter Creek (Water)
    Black Canyon (Earth); Glacier Gorge; Palo Duro (sunset) [Canyon Sketches]
    Looking for the Rainbow
    Massif; Storm; Highland dusk [Highland Sketches]
    Viennese Sketches
    Blue Ridge; Jupiter Rising [Sinfonia]
    Hrad (morning climb to the castle ruins); Ptáci (watching Leoš’s birds); Vody (forest streams and shadows); Bystroušky (mouflons and other mountain wildlife); Podzim (autumn sunset) [Hukvaldy Sketches]
    Separate listening to all 8 pieces found here . . .

    Free score and parts available from the composer: tc24@txstate.edu

  • Hukvaldy Sketches

    2016.   oboe, clarinet, viola, marimba.      Duration: 11 minutes

    The Czech mountain village of Hukvaldy was the summer home of the great 20th-century Moravian composer Leoš Janáček. I visited there many years ago when studying Janáček’s music and composing a ballet, PTACI, which was premiered in Brno in 1993. Janáček loved nature walks and studied bird songs. HUKVALDY SKETCHES is a set of modern musical impressions of old Moravia, in the ancient heart of Eastern Europe.

    Premiere performance February 6, 2018, at Texas State University Performing Arts Center:

    I. Hrad – morning climb to the castle ruins

    II. Ptáci – watching Leoš’s birds

    III.    Vody – forest streams and shadows

    IV. Bystroušky – mouflons and other mountain wildlife

    V. Podzim – autumn sunset

    Ian Davidson (oboe), Vanguel Tangarov (clarinet), Ames Asbell (viola), Kari Klier (marimba)

    To request performance materials and permission, email BMI-affiliated composer Thomas Clark, tc24@txstate.edu