Hymntunes III for Two Flutes and Fixed Media

Description

Hymntunes III for Two Flutes and Fixed Media by Robert Fruehwald (1994)

Score form – only 1 score included

Fixed Media accompaniment for Hymntunes III is available for download as an mp3 at rfruehwald.com/hymntunesiii.html  Ahigher quality audio file and a video version of the accompaniment are available from the composer.

The composer recommends Robert Dick's The Other Flute for more detailed information about the extended techniques used, but he does include some instructions for the extended techniques used: key finger slides, harmonic slides, embouchure rolls

I. Hymn to St. Magnus (Orkney Island – c.1100)

II. Annunciation (After Petrus de Cruce c. 1300)

III. Vedic Hymn (Saman c. 1000 B.C. from the Samaveda)

IV. Anglo-American Hymn (from the Sacred Harp – 1840)

V. Delphic Hymn (Ancient Greece, c. 138 B.C.E.)

Religious melodies from many different eras and cultures are used in Hymntunes III.  The texts that accompany these melodies are not discarded.  In the first movement, the Latin text of the Hymn to St. Magnus is used as a response to the original melody which appears in the fixed media.  The second movement includes a vocal part from a Petrus de Cruce motet set in a sort of “musique concrete” style.  This vocal part was performed and processed in a way that causes it to sound as if it were recorded long ago, in the field, using portable equipment.  This field recording is then used to creat a montage.  The third movement uses separate syllables from a Hindu word as a percussive accompaniment for a Vedic melody.  Movement four is a choral setting with flute descants.  The choral style is based on the “sacred harp” singing once common in the southern United States.  In this style of singing, the singers are more concerned with individual expression than with ensemble.  They never sing exactly together, they often add ornaments individually, and they typically improvise canonic passages.  The final movement makes use of the ancient Greek Delphic hymn.  This work has been performed numerous times including at the National Flute Association convention in Washington  D.C in 2015.  —– R. Fruehwald