Shadows II  
for piano, percussion and brass quintet  

The Iowa Music Teachers Association commissioned Shadows II. In discussing the scope of the work, the IMTA encouraged me to write a piece that featured the piano.

Shadows II is a one-movement work in two main parts: fast--slow. The fast music is made up of two sections. The first contains two contrasting ideas: tall, quick and rhythmically punctuated chords alternating with an increasingly elongated 4-note descending motive played by the piano and percussion. The second section exhibits a cohesive rhythmic ostinato between the piano/percussion and the brass that broaches jazz (suggested in the marimba part).

The second half of the piece is slow and lyrical. It begins with the piano in a quasi-cadenza that reminds me of the piano music of Chopin, followed by a chorale for the entire ensemble that is reminiscent of Olivier Messiaen. It ends with the percussion and the piano 'shadowing' each other. There is another timbral polarity to listen for, that between the brass/marimba (wood) and the muted brass/bells (metals, including the almglocken, vibraphone and glockenspiel).

In 1995 I wrote a work for organ and MIDI controller entitled Shadows. While Shadows II is not a sequel--there is no shared material between the two compositions--, nevertheless, I continue to be curious about musically portraying what is essentially a visual phenomenon: the blocking and interruption of a light source by an object, creating the shadow. In music, tight canonic and fugal structures serve as comparable analogues. In this work, I paired the piano and percussion, the latter a shadow to the former. Additionally, the tall vertical sonorities in the first major section are linearized in the second lyrical section--the chords become melodies. In order to explain this, imagine yourself on a clear day at high noon with the sun directly overhead (whatever time of year that would be, based on latitude). Of course, there are no apparent shadows--they are "under" your feet. As the sun appears to move and set along the horizon, shadows are created: tall objects have become broadened along a horizontal axis. As the dimming and shifting light increases the contrast between light and dark, we begin to play with silhouettes--imagine shadow plays.

There is a second subtext that runs through my mind when I contemplate the idea of shadows. Naturally, the substance of any relationship can be identified at various levels: musically, in this work, between the piano and the percussion, between the piano/percussion and the brass quintet, between the 4-note descending wedge-like motive in the opening bars and the resulting piano solo material in the cadenza; humanly, between friends, companions, and allies; culturally, between similar or disparate, high or low, old and new civilizations. Such relationships tend to be relegated--as in our current Western and Americanized culture--to the shadows, where they nevertheless stand with precision and clarity.

Shadows II was premiered June 4, 2000 in Clapp Recital Hall on the campus of the University of Iowa by the Iowa Brass Quintet (David Greenhoe, Barbara Deur, trumpets; Kristin Thelander, horn; David Gier, trombone and Robert Yeats, tuba) Brett E. E. Paschal, percussion, Ching-chu Hu, conductor and the composer at the piano.