Music archive entry

Flexible - four melody lines

These short works represent musical depictions of tableaux of artistsŐ works throughout the ages. Both The Dance of Life and Melancholy are presentations from two pictures of the Norwegian artist, Edvard Munch and are taken from my String Quartet No. 1.

The Dance of Life is a stately dance that reflects the three ages of life. The opening waltz portrays the innocence and aspirations of a young woman preparing to embrace young love. It turns, then, to a loss of innocence in a modal section, then to abandonment and lust. Here the tenor instrument picks up and extends a motto with a purposeful insistence until the pangs of desire gradually fade into the reflections of an older, wistful yearning.

Melancholy opens with a sense of determination and acceptance in the face of loss. The strong, rhythmic bass passage introduces this sense of strength. This is countered, however, by the tenor instrument that expresses the earlier motive of The Dance of Life. Yet this sense of determination pervades the instruments in short sixteenth-note turns. As the bass begins a scale-wise motive, the other instruments return to the cyclic motive of the previous movement. The treble begins to resound with torments until all of the instruments reach a heightened moment of realization in a series of sweeping parallel seventh chords that expand this motive to its fullest. The instruments pull together, then speak individually with the sense of melancholy that pervades the movement.