Instrumentation: String Orchestra
Difficulty: Advanced (Grade 5)
Duration: ca. 4 minutes
Program Note: The name Argonauta bears within it a curious doubleness. It calls to mind, first, the voyagers who sailed the Argo in search of the Golden Fleece. Yet it also belongs to a small and mysterious creature of the sea—an octopus with great eyes and outstretched, webbed arms, dwelling not in the hidden depths but unusually near the surface. It was from this doubleness that the present work took its cue. I imagined a company of sailors setting out upon their course, only to be assailed, under cover of night, by strange cephalopods rising from dark waters. Their arms reach and twist across the vessel until the sailors are enmeshed in a struggle from which there is no easy release.
The music tells the tale in its own way. The restless octatonic scales, turning upon themselves and never quite at ease, are the creatures’ arms—forever writhing, forever reaching.
This arrangement for string orchestra was written for my friend Rachel Jayson and the Lexington String Orchestra. The original material for the piece was composed for Jory Herman of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, who commissioned the chamber version of this work and gave its first performance.
Document Sizes: Score and parts are formatted for printing on A4 paper, though these technically could be printed on any size paper. Popular substitutions include Letter (8.5”x11”) for parts and score or Tabloid (11”x17”) for score (for extra large staves).
Instrumentation: String Orchestra
Difficulty: Advanced (Grade 5)
Duration: ca. 4 minutes
Program Note: The name Argonauta bears within it a curious doubleness. It calls to mind, first, the voyagers who sailed the Argo in search of the Golden Fleece. Yet it also belongs to a small and mysterious creature of the sea—an octopus with great eyes and outstretched, webbed arms, dwelling not in the hidden depths but unusually near the surface. It was from this doubleness that the present work took its cue. I imagined a company of sailors setting out upon their course, only to be assailed, under cover of night, by strange cephalopods rising from dark waters. Their arms reach and twist across the vessel until the sailors are enmeshed in a struggle from which there is no easy release.
The music tells the tale in its own way. The restless octatonic scales, turning upon themselves and never quite at ease, are the creatures’ arms—forever writhing, forever reaching.
This arrangement for string orchestra was written for my friend Rachel Jayson and the Lexington String Orchestra. The original material for the piece was composed for Jory Herman of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, who commissioned the chamber version of this work and gave its first performance.
Document Sizes: Score and parts are formatted for printing on A4 paper, though these technically could be printed on any size paper. Popular substitutions include Letter (8.5”x11”) for parts and score or Tabloid (11”x17”) for score (for extra large staves).
