2021 string orchestra duration: 22 minutes
Inspired by the great serenades for strings of Dvořák and Tchaikovsky, this suite explores musical metaphors for the physics of H2O in interesting atmospheric and geographic settings.
I. Cold front (VAPOR becomes SOLID): In low clouds on mountain tops, water vapor can become super-cooled and become freezing fog, filling the air with small ice crystals and freezing to surfaces, similar to very light snow. In the western United States, the common name for freezing fog is “pogonip.”
II. Ice Dunes (SOLID): In the Leelanau Peninsula of Michigan, the Lake Michigan surf sometimes whips up and freezes in mid-air, forming weird ice caverns and ice dunes.
III. Nuages (VAPOR), French for clouds, is one of Debussy’s three beautiful Nocturnes for orchestra, quoted here as a theme for variations. Water vapor is technically invisible. The clouds we see are actually masses of minute liquid droplets and frozen crystals. Thus this movement embodies all three states of water.
IV. Vltava (LIQUID): The great river Vltava flows majestically through Prague. Smetana’s depiction of it in his monumental Ma Vlast is usually translated as The Moldau.
To request performance materials and permission, email the composer, tc24@txstate.edu.
Thomas Clark - composer / digital artist 