Six Bagatelles 

Program Notes

Six Bagatelles is a set of whimsical character pieces which, in my own composer’s perception, provided balance to some of the heavier works I had written over the previous several years. The first movement, Humming, not only hums along like a well-tuned engine, but it also evokes a melody that someone might actually hum. Let Evening Come is an arrangement of a song, for baritone or mezzo-soprano, flute, and piano, on Jane Kenyon’s poem of the same name—part of a cycle from 1994 called Night Will Blossom. The title Melancholy speaks for itself, as does that of the fifth movement, Solace. Skirmish started out as a march, but when changes of meter emerged in the composing of the piece, I realized it was no longer marchable, though still martial in character. The final movement is a Mosaic in two senses: the accompaniment in the strings in the outer sections of the piece is made up of small bits of material, combining to create an overall texture; and its middle section is made up of fragments of material heard in earlier movements.

The piece was commissioned by David & Carol Carlson for Pacific Serenades and was premiered in March of 1995 by Mark Carlson, flute, Connie Kupka & Margaret Batjer, violins, Victoria Miskolczy, viola, and David Speltz, cello.