GOTA DE NOCHE [1988-89]

[Symphony Orchestra (3 {1/picc, 2/alto fl}, 2, e.h., 3 {3/bass cl}, 2; 4, 2, 2, 1; timp; 4 perc.; pf. {cel}; hp; strgs)]

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Commissioned by the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería.Mexico City

Premiered at Sala Nezahualcóyotl, Mexico City on August 5, 1989.

Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería, Luis Herrera de la Fuente, cond.

DURATION: 11'

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Program note:

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The work, commissioned by Maestro Luis Herrera de la Fuente and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería was composed between October, 1988 and March, 1989, while I was a student at the Peabody Conservatory of Music.

The general idea upon which Gota de Noche ("A Drop of the Night") is based emerged from the work of Spanish-Mexican poet Tomás Segovia. Although my piece is not intended to be a programmatic work, Gota de Noche appeals to the same atmosphere of "ancestral serenity" I find in much of Segovia's.

Gota de Noche gravitates around a series of chords that are based on fourths and fifths. The initial theme, introduced by the English Horn, is manipulated throughout the piece within a musical landscape of slight textural and harmonic processes of transformation.

Gota de Noche bears a double dedicatory: to my wife Josefina and to my teacher Jean Eichelberger Ivey.