Veils

Veils was inspired by a group of paintings by the great American abstract painter Morris Louis. For these paintings Louis devised a technique of staining the canvas, allowing the colors both to mingle and to keep separate their identities. The results are paintings of delicate, veil-like translucence, which, combined with their large scale, entice the observer to enter. In my orchestra piece, I have translated some of these techniques and images into music. Winds are in pairs and usually appear together, purifying their color; melodic lines in the strings are seamlessly passed from section to section; quasi-canonic passages create increasingly dense, but still translucent, “veils” of sound. Throughout the piece, the principal oboe is the protagonist. It sometimes seems to stand aside, observing, reflecting, only to be swept back into the flow of the piece. Thus the oboe-observer sees the piece from within, at last fulfilling the desire of the observer in the gallery. Commissioned and premiered by the Haydn-Mozart Chamber Orchestra, Veils has also been performed by the Armenian Philharmonic and can be heard on Navona Records NV6369.

Instrumentation is 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, and strings.