Sinew
Composer: Jonathan Schellack
Major/Class: English / Senior
Hometown: Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Genre: Trio for Piano (Patty McBrayer), Cello (Natalie Pavelock), and Doublebass
(Sarah Wallett)
The first goal behind “Sinew” is to focus on a pulsing throb. Experimentation
with the low registers of several instruments initiates, in the sound, a low,
thick quality that produces a beat. The piece then moves through rhythmic
variations and clusters of sonorities to leave behind the initial pulse of 3/4
time signature at a tempo of 160 beats per minute. As the piece shakes off that
rhythmic throb it changes sonorously as well, moving into higher registers than
those with which the piece exclusively begins. The music then goes through a
section of fast, increasingly dense sonorities until a climax is reached. After
a pause, the “Sinew” concludes with a series of prolonged note clusters. The
composition is largely an aesthetic exploration of low sonorities and of
rhythms, as well as variations on both.
The title is analogous, in many ways, to the energetic progression of the piece.
A synonym for the word “sinew” is tendon, and the piece stretches and contracts
as does a tendon in the body: back and forth with exercise. Furthermore, sinew
also denotes muscular power, and the piece does give a sense of strength, from
the thickness of the early low notes to the loud clusters of notes in the piano
that take the piece to its climax. The rhythmic variation and accompanying
intensity also contribute to the sense of the movement of tendons and muscles
through the piece, each strand of tissue pushed and pulled in various ways as
the whole body moves.
***********************************************************************
Main Composition Page