Chamber Music (2018)
[3332.4221.timp+3 perc.pno.hrp.strings]
Duration: 11’30”
Commissioned by the Oregon Symphony Orchestra
Premiered September 29, 2018 at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Portland OR.
Oregon Symphony Orchestra; Jun Märkl, conductor
View the score
When composers write for orchestras, they often take advantage of the full sound spectrum of instruments and timbres within the ensemble. In creating Chamber Music, Balch has chosen to focus on the intimacy of collaboration, what she describes as “interconnected introversion,” rather than an expansive soundscape. Balch describes the work as “a very intimate, intricate music intended for close listening and made among friends. There are many soloists who chatter amongst each other and exchange musical materials. I wanted to distinguish this from the idea of a ‘concerto’ for orchestra, without the sort of virtuosic extroversion that a concerto implies. I guess I’m attracted to the idea of an intimate or hushed virtuosity.”
Constructed in two halves, the first section of Chamber Music alternates periods of bouncy rhythmic woodwind textures with what Balch calls “whisper music.” “Whisper music is all sorts of little clicking, popping, crunching, whispering sounds that soloists babble to each other,” Balch explains. “Sometimes this is a playful, active gossiping; other times it’s more solemn and still.” The second section features a quiet chorale that flutters and disappears. “Sometimes parts of the orchestra ‘fall out of tune’ with other parts (by playing a quarter-tone lower), which results in what to me are very colorful and expressive beatings in the music.”
Chamber Music is a companion piece to Balch’s Leaf Fabric, which was commissioned and premiered in 2017 by the Suntory Summer Arts Festival in Japan. “Both are inspired visually by the intricate, detailed veination of leaves, and sonically by the dense but very quiet omnipresent sounds of the outdoors – imagine lying down in the grass and just listening to all the crinkling, swishing, and chirping around you,” says Balch.
— Elizabeth Schwartz
Press:
“...Märkl also issued a light-hearted warning: “there will be no melody, but very beautiful sound experiences, very unique.” ....Balch’s music was sparse and, as promised, amelodic. Yet it was a compelling amelodicism, a shimmering sonic blanket quilted from microswaths of richly colored acoustic fabrics, harmonic in an aggressively non-functional way, halfway between the John Adamses. Waves of dazzling brass, swelling out from muted trumpets and trombone glissandi, surging across the stage to the horns. A sine tone emerged from a pair of intent trumpets and threaded its way around the orchestra through wavering winds and spectralist strings...”
Preview:
Portland Mercury: Preview: Composer Katherine Balch Brings Coziness and Science to the Symphony