Music from a Distant Room (2019) | electric guitar, string quartet | 12:00
Commissioned by Zane Forshee. Premiered in Washington DC, March 2024. Zane Forshee and Bergamot String Quartet.
1. A Barely Open Door
2. Early Bright
The piece is a reflection on an incident that happened many years ago while I was traveling through Quebec. Sleeping on the floor of a hostel (in an old house), I heard music from somewhere else in the building. All I could recall was that it was for strings, but it faded in and out; or, maybe, I was fading in and out - was I really hearing this music? Or was I drifting into sleep? As often happens with hearing over distance, was I hearing only certain parts? The following morning I asked the guys running the hostel what they had been listening to: he pointed to a stack of LPs (yes, it was a long time ago). At the time I knew next to nothing about classical music, but I did recall that the likely composers name began with an M. Mahler? Monteverdi? Wasn't Mozart - that name I would have recognized. I never found out, and the memory and the mystery has stayed with me. This piece is not an attempt to recall the actual music, but rather to evoke the experience. - R. Pearl
Commissioned by Zane Forshee. Premiered in Washington DC, March 2024. Zane Forshee and Bergamot String Quartet.
1. A Barely Open Door
2. Early Bright
The piece is a reflection on an incident that happened many years ago while I was traveling through Quebec. Sleeping on the floor of a hostel (in an old house), I heard music from somewhere else in the building. All I could recall was that it was for strings, but it faded in and out; or, maybe, I was fading in and out - was I really hearing this music? Or was I drifting into sleep? As often happens with hearing over distance, was I hearing only certain parts? The following morning I asked the guys running the hostel what they had been listening to: he pointed to a stack of LPs (yes, it was a long time ago). At the time I knew next to nothing about classical music, but I did recall that the likely composers name began with an M. Mahler? Monteverdi? Wasn't Mozart - that name I would have recognized. I never found out, and the memory and the mystery has stayed with me. This piece is not an attempt to recall the actual music, but rather to evoke the experience. - R. Pearl
| music_from_a_distant_room_score_and_parts.pdf |