compositions
compositions
FABLE MYSTIQUE de RACHEL
- excerpt
Thirteen Strings
Conductor: Peter Paul Koprowski
Duration: 15 minutes
Written: 2000
Premiered: May 5, 2000
by Thirteen Strings
Conductor: Peter Paul Koprowski
Ottawa, Canada
by Thirteen Strings
Conductor: Peter Paul Koprowski
Ottawa, Canada
- Strings (Violin I, Violin II, Viola, Celli, Contrabass)
Background
Following my Epitaph for Strings, Ancestral Voices, and Intermezzo, Fable Mystique de Rachel was my forth composition for string orchestra.
It was commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for the Thirteen Strings chamber orchestra of Ottawa in 2000. The same year I conducted the premiere of it in Ottawa and the performance was subsequently broadcast by the CBC.
The work is in one movement, although it breaks into several sections. The orchestra is periodically divided into smaller ensembles and it features a number of soli. The work is rhapsodic in nature and it is set within an extended tonal language. There is no specific story line in it. The title of it was given by my daughter, after she had heard me play some passages of it at the piano.
Fable Mystique de Rachel is dedicated to Rachel, who was instrumental in giving me her input pertaining to the character of the piece.
Press
“It was a terrific piece, exciting and engrossing, well structured, full of rich melodic material in a thoroughly accessible idiom. It deserves a place of honour in the standard string repertoire.”