Product Description
Symphony No. 3, Ave Maris Stella (2005) was written for the Duquesne Contemporary
Ensemble and is dedicated to composer David Stock. Throughout his career, Stock has been
a tireless and generous advocate on behalf of new music and living composers. This work is
dedicated to him in tribute as both an important American composer and a significant
contributor to Americas contemporary musical life.
The works basic source material is the plainchant Ave maris stella (Hail, star of the sea)
appropriate because of Duquesnes standing and history as a Catholic university. When the
composition of this work first began, the original plan was for a celebratory and vibrant piece.
As the planning progressed, however, personal circumstances intervened and began to change
the works tone becoming substantially bleaker and more obsessive.
The title of the first movement, Pentimento, is defined as an underlying image in a painting,
as an earlier painting, that shows through when the top layer of paint has become transparent
with age. The melodic and harmonic material for the movement is entirely drawn from the
plainchant source, although it is completely transformed and covered up as in a pentimento.
At various points, one can begin to hear the original plainchant peek out in subtle ways.
The opening section of the movement obsesses again and again on what sounds like a
beginning as though it is trying to begin again and again. After a brief bassoon cadenza, a
fast and driving section starts, marked sinister. After driving through a series of
transformations on the plainchant material, a bridge passage leads to further attempts at the
beginning again. Finally, these attempts are given up, and the plainchant material (the
underlying layer) begins to show through quietly in preparation for the next movement.
In the second movement, Interrupted Motet, the plainchant theme is used in a more
straightforward fashion. After the opening declamatory statements, the following sections
move between more free developmental techniques, based on the first movements
transformations, and motet sections using cantus firmus methods and textures from
Renaissance music. The tone and palate is, however, much darker and more obsessive.
There is a brooding ponderousness to these contrapuntal developments. The final motet
section ends in a rageful shout, the plainchant material is presented again in full force, and the
pent-up energy dissipates to the close.
Flute
Oboe
Clarinet in Bb
Bass Clarinet in Bb
Bassoon
Horn in F/Bb
Trumpet in C
Trombone
Percussion (1 player):
tubular bells, vibraphone
(Percussionist needs one rosined bow for vibraphone.)
Piano
Violin I
Violin II
Viola
Cello
Contrabass
(single strings)
This is the score only. The complete parts and each seperate part are also available as seperate items.
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