Informationen zu "Michael Montgomery Antarctica Suite Double Bass Quartet"
Verlag: Recital Music
Verlagsnummer: RM940
EAN: 9790570459407
ISMN: M-57045-940-7
Beschreibung
Antarctica Suite is a five movement suite aimed at the young progressing bass
quartet, also playable by largere forces. A wealth of colours, textures and
timbres are explored offering effective musical and technical challenges for
each bassist. Each movement is a miniature tone poem, often incorporating
simple harmonics alongside the orchestral range of the instrument. The pieces
have a didactic aspect as well as being great concert literature, offering
much to the enterprising and adventurous bass quartet or ensemble. Programme
notes are by Michael Montgomery. 1. Antarctica - The Vast White Wilderness
Being a land known for its wide expanse and solitude, desolation and beauty,
many of Antarctica?s faces are likely familiar to most who would consider her
- several are here represented in this and the remaining four movements of
the suite, which are intended to serve as musical snapshots of one of the
most hostile and barren corners of our planet. 2. Totten - Mammoth River of
Ice In your mind?s eye picture the deep rushing torrents of the largest and
fastest flowing river you can imagine, a tremendous aquatic highway draining
the waters an entire continent out into a faraway sea. If you are able to
freeze frame that image and give it the backdrop of an endless frozen
wasteland, you will have conjured up for yourself the image of the great
Totten Glacier of Antarctica, meandering and flowing ever so slowly from the
centre of the continent northeast toward Cape Waldron and the Austral Ocean.
3. The Penguin - Tuxedo-clad Harlequin Sometimes awkward, ever playful, the
penguin is one of the most recognized and well-liked creatures of the land,
and spending an afternoon enjoying the antics of this happy fellow among his
playmates is perhaps the favourite pastime of any tourist who makes the
pilgrimage to this frozen continent. 4. Orcinus Orca - The Killer Whale
During the many years I lived on the edge of the Everglades near the
Miccosukee Indian reservation I was forever fascinated with the traditions
and stories of this people. I can still remember the musings of Buffalo
Tiger, shaman to the tribe, as he reminisced about the old ways, saying there
were those who ?still remember the song and could ride the whale?. The whale
he referred to, of course, is the Orca, a creature found in each of the
world?s oceans as well as many legends of indigenous peoples worldwide. While
the character of the opening punctuations here portray the largest and most
terrifying predator to prowl the Antarctic shoreline, the quality of the
sweeter melody introduced midway the movement depicts a sentient being who is
also an integral member of a surprisingly social family group. 5. Secret
Gardens - Lakes Beneath the Ice As you delve into this movement, picture
yourself somehow shrunk to microscopic size and transported to a massive dark
pool in a hidden world beneath a blanket of ice a half mile deep. Though
isolated from the rest of planet you find yourself in the midst of an
abundant thriving community of microbes, hidden and lurking for millennia in
lakes beneath the continent's cold glacial ice, celebrating with endless
dance their ancient existence. . Double bassist Michael Montgomery, a
student of Robert Rohe and Lucas Drew, has a Doctor of Musical Arts degree,
played in the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra for many years, and now lives in
the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, where he teaches at the University of
Arkansas Fayetteville and the Suzuki Music School of Arkansas. His articles
have been published in American Suzuki Journal, Bass World, and Pastoral
Music.
