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L'Icône St. Nicolas
for violin, percussion and nine instruments
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L'Icône St. Nicolas
(December 2008) for violin, percussion and nine instruments, and the earlier Ikon (September 2008) for violin and piano
are both a musical representation of a 19th-century Russian house icon of St. Nicolas acquired by the composer in Tallinn,
Estonia in June 2008.
Three elements are present in the iconic rendering: a triangle (created from the crosses of the stole), a square (book of the
Gospels), and three circles (in which the figures of the saint, as well as Christ and Mary appear nimbated). The main motive
is derived from three layers of pitch matrices, revealed specifically through a "window" created by the triangle. The 36x36
matrices are themselves based on collections of trichords (3x3). (cf. Program Notes)
Although popularized in western myth as Santa Claus, St. Nicolas was known for his generosity to children, justice for the
oppressed, and the struggle to support the Doctrine of the Trinity at the Council of Nicaea. Hence, the all-pervasive number 3.
Both works are formalized in three sections, and follow in general ways not only the scansion of the Lord's Prayer, in Russian,
but the musical rendering of three ideas: the linear (the word), the vertical (space), and the connection between the two in
the way a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church might sign the cross (top, down, right, left).
Ikon was premiered on a 14-recital tour of the MidWest and East Coast (September/October, 2008) by Wolfgang David, violin
and the composer at the piano. L'Icône St. Nicolas was premiered by Jeff Milarsky and the Manhattan Sinfonietta
(Aaron Boyd, violin & Tom Kolor, percussion) in Merkin Hall, New York on February 17, 2009.
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