Wind Play

Description

William Averitt’s Wind Play, for flute, bassoon, and piano, is a series of quasi-tone poems.

The title of the first movement, ‘Ghost Shadows,’ is a nod in the direction of Beethoven’s great ‘Ghost Trio,’ whose opening textures Ghost Shadows distantly emulates, as well as the fact that it was written for a Halloween weekend. Formally, the first movement is a sonatina, dividing in half as expositions-development/coda.

The music of ‘Delicate Traceries,’ the 2nd movement, focuses on the two winds throughout, with the piano remaining almost entirely in the background. The opening section overlaps low flute with high bassoon in quiet dialogue. The second part begins with wind octaves but soon moves into a short canon led by the flute and answered by the bassoon in inversion. This builds into the movement’s climax, followed by a very brief return of the music from the beginning.

‘Pursuit (Perpetuum mobile),’ is a quirky, energetic rondo-finale in six equal sections: A-B-A-C-A & Coda (on B). The A sections largely center on a constantly changing interplay between the piano and winds; the B section and related Coda are syncopated and jazzy; and, finally, the C section is entirely for piano alone.

For advanced players.

Additional information