Sinew (2020)
Large Orchestra
11 minutes
Note
When I set out to write Sinew, I wanted to write a piece with a curious harmonic palette, and a shifting poly-rhythmic motive at its center.
The piece begins with a riotous exclamation from the orchestra, expressed by a collage of quarter note quintuplets layered over stoic quarter notes. This layering of poly-rhythmic ambiguity sets the stage for the piece and introduces us to the first rhythmic motive: the quarter note quintuplet. What commences is a tense exploration of staccato sound injections, punctuated by brilliant, plectral gestures, and some brief percussive interruptions. The rhythmic formula of this section, with its hemiolic identity and strong favor towards off-beat footing, was inspired by my many times performing the inventive and utterly percussive writing of Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story.
The quarter-note quintuplet motive is re-introduced and morphs into a brassy quintuplet fanfare that explodes back into an ecstatic version of the at-once-tense hemiolic pattern. The piece then relaxes into a fragile slurry of sound mass interrupted by gentle chords in the horns. Sections of the orchestra become divided harmonically and begin bleeding their chords into one another.
We then move from an ominous and bubbling kind of music to a more restrained and hushed version of the rhythmic fanfare material from earlier on, now presented as a harmonic background to the melismatic long tones in the violas. This explodes into a flurry of rapid fire arpeggios in the strings. Before a short respite, returning once again to the hushed and restrained version of the fanfare music, the orchestra breathes out an arrival of C major. As the dust settles, a boiling begins in the orchestra that bubbles into a torrent of sound mass. The sound mass flirts with some previous hemiolic material until reaching its final apex, before abruptly vanishing.
If you are inquiring about performance materials for this piece, please contact Taylor at this link.
Score
