- Joan Tower
Island Rhythms (1985)
- Associated Music Publishers Inc (World)
- 2(pic).2.2.2/2.2.0+btbn.1/timp.2perc/str
- 8 min
Programme Note
Composer Note
Island Rhythms is a seven-and-a-half minute celebratory piece divided into three sections: fast-slow-fast. The fast outer sections, somewhat reminiscent of Caribbean drum music, develop and explore a repeated figure through textural, timbral, registral, and dynamic contrasts. The repeated tutti chord which climaxes the work was inspired by a fragment from the final movement of Berlioz' Symphonie fantastique. The central section has a slow-moving upward direction that becomes more "luminous" as it rises. This was an attempt to depict an underwater swimmer gradually rising to the water's surface from a very deep place in the ocean.
— Joan Tower
Media
Island Rhythms
Scores
Reviews
...a punchy opener in the post-John Adams vein, pounding and surging away with a firm sense of harmonic direction...
11th December 1990
Discography
- LabelFirst Edition
- Catalogue Number25
- ConductorLawrence Leighton Smith
- EnsembleLouisville Orchestra