Star of the County Down
 New Music for Violin and Piano
David Gompper   Star of the County Down
David Gompper   Music in the Glen
Joseph Dangerfield   Dreams of Fin
Ching-chu Hu   Ice Fields in August
Noel Zahler   for violin and piano
John Allemeier   King's Cross

2007 Albany Records (TROY937)
Cover Design of Star of the County Down
Star of the County Down  
for violin and piano  

Star of the County Down is the final offering of Three Irish Fiddle Tunes. The collection as a whole leads off with Finnegan's Wake and Music in the Glen. Star of the County Down is a fantasia, a genre that has a rich heritage of its own. The principal melody is present virtually from the initial to the final measures, and the rhythmic vamping and contrapuntal interplay between violin and piano in the opening strain is but a harbinger of things to come. The two instruments continually trade   EXPAND...

Performances
-Sondheim Performing Arts Center, Fairfield, Iowa, February 23, 2011
-Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, February 14, 2011
-Indiana University-East, September 28, 2010 (Dávid, Gompper)
-University of Indianapolis, September 27, 2010 (Dávid, Gompper)
-University of Iowa, September 26, 2010 (Dávid, Gompper)
-Northern Illinois University, De Kalb, IL, September 24, 2010 (Dávid, Gompper)
-Coe College, Cedar Rapids, IA, September 23, 2010 (Dávid, Gompper)
-Grinnell College, IA, September 14, 2010 (Dávid, Gompper)
-Eischens House Concert, Coralville, IA, September 12, 2010 (Dávid, Gompper)
-UCSB, March 15, 2007, (Ruest, Gompper)
-Coe College, September 15, 2006 (Dávid, Gompper)
-University of Iowa, September 13, 2006 (Dávid, Gompper)
-KuenstlerKlub, Frankfurt, June 5, 2006 (Dávid, Gompper)
-Bolshoi Hall, Moscow Conservatory, May 12, 2006 (Zamuruev, Gompper)
-University of Iowa, March 8, 2006 (Wolfe, Nez)
-Union of Composers, Moscow, November 29, 2005
-University of Iowa, September 16, 2005
Star of the County Down is the final offering of Three Irish Fiddle Tunes. The collection as a whole leads off with Finnegan's Wake and Music in the Glen. Star of the County Down is a fantasia, a genre that has a rich heritage of its own. The principal melody is present virtually from the initial to the final measures, and the rhythmic vamping and contrapuntal interplay between violin and piano in the opening strain is but a harbinger of things to come. The two instruments continually trade off portions of the melody and do so in a manner reminiscent of protracted figure/ground exchanges.

The harmonic palette throughout is richly chromatic, and introduces the modal and pentatonic underpinnings of the theme to an assortment of 21st-century considerations. And yet none of this is about "musing" in the casual sense of the word. Instead, the primary concern is to instill the traditional melody with the quality of an echo: allusions to past selves though they may well be, no echo ever stands as an exact replica either of the source or, indeed, of earlier reflections. And thus it is that the farther we move into Star of the County Down, the more tightly the piece comes to inscribe itself within its own closed borders. The conversational teaming of the violin and piano continues to increase in intensity until at its apex a veritable perpetual mobile emerges. Events unwind following the climax and gradual decrease is registered in rhythmic, chromatic, and textural terms. But again there is a transparent purpose behind the strategy: it is a preparation for the total transformation of the source material presented in the ensuing--and closing--meno mosso section. Here we encounter apotheosis and irony, for our exposure to the ultimate motivic framework is unimaginable without the very past that is practically no longer recognizable in it.

...REDUCE