Myths and Legends

Program Notes

Myths and Legends is a large scale work for seven strings (or string orchestra). Its three movements are organized as archetypes of classical forms, an opening Fantasia with free , lush, flowing counterpoint that develops, a middle Scherzo, with crisp snapping rhythms, and a finale built around a Ritornello motif that comes back again and again amidst middle episodes. This was one of my first attempts to compose a piece on this scale, and the sound world consciously looks back to other string masterworks by Schoenberg, Tippett, Part, Shostakovich, and many others. The work was, in many ways, and homage to my love of string orchestra works written over time. All three movements are linked to Lewis Carroll. In the first movement, Any Road Will Get You There, we imagine the winding roads of Wonderland that Alice and the Mad Hatter navigate, with musical tropes resurfacing all the while amidst every twist and turn. In the second movement, Turtles All the Way Down, a successive descent of music leads all the way back to where it began, a sort of logical paradox of which Carroll might have been fond. In the final movement, the fascist Queen of Hearts hovers over the music. The finale is intense and passionate, as individual instruments cry out in rebellion against the Queen and her obsessive cries of "Off with their heads" which serve as a repeating motif that comes back again and again in the movement. I am grateful to all of the performers who have explored this piece with me.

- Daniel Temkin