Terpsichore’s Dream
Terpsichore’s Dream for Chamber Orchestra: Instrumental music by Augusta Read Thomas directed by Cliff Colnoton on a one-track CD 15:30. by Gary Edwards
“Terpsichore” refers to two Greek words for delight and dancing. It’s easy to picture this piece as the basis for delightful dancing. Choreography would add to the interest of the music.
The music begins with an introduction of varying tempos and moods, generally fast. Chimes add an interesting twist to the delightful interplay of solo flute and other instrumental elodies, accompanied by syncopated bursts of short staccato notes, underlain by eight-note scales, generally moving upwards.
From about 3:20 seconds into the piece through about 10:30 the piece turns moody, melancholy and slow. The music then picks up the pace, starting with a flurry of percussion, with eighth-note rhythmic patterns again emerging over the syncopated one-note punctuations at apparently random intervals.
The last minute of the piece is slow, starting with a beautiful viola solo. As the music rises, the volume and intensity diminish until fading out completely.
In summary, you rarely hear many instruments simultaneously but there is a delightful mix of instruments, each taking brief turns at dominance. There is no dominant set of melodic themes. Recurring rhythmic patterns seem to be the glue that holds the piece together. There is mild dissonance but never irritatingly so. There are no idées fixes, other than rhythmic patterns of eighth-notes with some sustained overlying notes, and at other times there are rapidly moving melodies. The ideal setting for listening to this music is on a computer being played by a full-screen Windows Media Player of random colors and patterns generated by the music. The main criticism is that when everything is a surprise, then nothing is surprising, to paraphrase an old cliché.
More information is available at www.augustareadthomas.com
