Locklair, D :: Reynolda Reflections

Dan Lockalir s Reynolda Reflections is a trio in five movements for flute, cello, and piano. Each of the movements of this twenty-six minute chamber composition was inspired by a specific American painting from the collection of the Reynolda House, Museum of American Art, in North Carolina.

Movement 1: Fantasy in the Woods - On the 1864 painting The Old Hunting Grounds by Worthington Whittredge. As the painter seems to evoke an earlier painting by an English painter, so, too, does the musical material of this movement. A fantasy by design, this movement is an ongoing variation of the well-known Third Mode Melody by the English Tudor composer, Thomas Tallis, Dreamy lyricism abounds in this Phrygian mode-based movement.

Movement 2: Grounded in Machines - On the 1927 painting Bootleggers by Thomas Hart Benton. After introductory piano notes, this jazzy movement is based on a ground bass formed by an octatonic scale. Dialogues between the instruments abound in this dramatic and rigorous movement that meditates on the painting s themes of good and evil.

Movement 3: Arias to a Flower - On the 1922 erotic painting Pool in the Woods, Lake George by Georgia O Keeffe. The third movement of Reynolda Reflections unfolds over a descending whole tone scale. Reflection and water images abound through this sensuous, introspective movement.

Movement 4: Dances Before the Barn - On the 1952 Conversation Piece by Charles Sheeler. This movement alternates between slow and fast sections; clean lines of lyrical melody alternate with quick, rhythmical dance-like sections. The musical material all comes from the pentatonic scale.

Movement 5: Songs to the Wind - On The Spirit of the Storm by Elliott Daingerfield. This fifth and final movement is built over a descending chromatic scale. Like the wind in the painting, the rich pianistic patterns shift and change throughout the movement. Over these patterns, unending melody, with the opening melodic line evoking Richard Wagner, abounds in all of the instrumental lines.

For advanced players.