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Dance of the Grieving Child |
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Mask of Fear |
Pasticcio: Pattern
and Imagery from Paul Klee is
an early piece by the composer. Written in 1965, it is in
five short movements, each reflecting impressions of a painting or
drawing by Klee. The first movement, "Dance of the Grieving
Child," is based on a whimsical drawing in which the sense of
grief is perhaps not very deep. Next is "Nightflutterer" (or
Moth) which is a short study in perpetual motion. Third is "Reflective"—spare,
very quiet, with soft touches of high harmonics in the cello. For
solo piano, "Lady
Demon" is staccato and accented with occasional outbursts. Lady
Demon leads without break into a brief cadenza, for solo cello that
serves as a transition to the final movement. "Mask of Fear" begins
ominously and loudly in the piano, allowing the cello to continue the
freely expressive mood of the transition, and resolves quietly at the
end, if with some ambivalence or a question mark.
The first performance of Pasticcio was at the University of
Michigan in 1965 and is essentially Elizabeth Vercoe's Opus 1. It
also appeared on her doctoral recital at Boston University in 1975. More
recently, the piece opened a concert featuring Elizabeth Vercoe's music
at Austin Peay State University in Tennessee in 2003, a concert
which concluded with another piece inspired
by the work of Paul Klee, called Kleemation.
See score
sample below.
To order
the score: elizvercoe@yahoo.com
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 mp3,
from Dance of the Grieving Child
mp3, from Nightflutterer |
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