breath
Composer: Lynn Burnett
Major/Class: Music/Senior
Hometown: Simpsonville, South Carolina
Genre: Violin Trio (Lee Ballard, Brian Conaway, Susan Stroebel)
For three violins, breath weaves an aura of sound around the
meditative rhythm of breathing, depicting the intake and release of breath
within macro and microcosmic dimensions. The violins have been chosen because of
their closeness to the human voice, and three to metaphorically represent the
life force of breath as connected to other great entities, for simplicity to be
labeled the body and mind.
Breath begins with one violin, metaphorically a thread, releasing a feeling of
openness as a simple motive slowly enters; it steadily changes and increases
rhythmically towards the center of the piece, then unfolds as a mirror slightly
changed. When the other two violins join that thread, each is playing a
characteristically different role rhythmically and harmonically: one very still
and rarely wavering from its chosen pitch, the other moving above and below the
thread and dwelling on motives often harmonically close to that line.
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