Larsen: Amber (Variation)
Expected to ship in 1-2 weeks.
Shipping Policy- Composer: Libby Larsen (1950-)
- Instrumentation: Piano
- Work: Amber (Variation) (2020)
- Size: 8.5 x 11.0 inches
Description
For Amber (Variation) I took as inspiration the image of a ripened field of grain, rolling and swaying in late -summer winds. It is an image deeply engrained in my childhood bones and one I escape into often.
To create a musical suggestion of this wheat field, I used two fragments from the melody America the Beautiful - "Oh beautiful, for spacious skies" (sol, mi, sol, re) and "for amber waves of grain" (mi, fa, sol, la, ti, sol) - and wove them into an aural image. I put two performance indications in the score - "delicately oscillating, lightly, legato throughout" and "dynamics should never exceed "P" – and invite the performer to use gradations of "p" (pp, ppp, pppp, etc.) to subtly bring out the two melodic fragments as they appear in the music. I thought it might be beautiful and energizing in the moment of performance if I provide a score-in-color, a visualization which highlights the two fragments as they appear in the music's texture. I used blue note heads for "Oh beautiful spacious skies" and amber note heads for "For amber waves of grain". The performer can choose to use the score-in-color or a score in traditional black and white notation.
--Libby Larsen
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Set of Parts
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Solo Part with Piano Reduction
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A small (think choral size) copy of the complete score meant for studying, and not playing. They make great add-ons when learning concertos and small chamber works.
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Larsen: Amber (Variation)
