Lois V Vierk

for orchestra

ca. 11'30"

This piece was inspired by the twisted sandstone canyon in the southern California high desert in Angeles National Park called "Devil's Punchbowl". At this exquisite site you are always aware of both extreme beauty and also danger. Descending into the canyon the trail is rugged, rocky, and treacherous, and the heat is scorching. But rising up from the deep gorge are steep, magnificent mountains with their cold streams and sweet-smelling pine trees. The vistas are grand. Far in the distance, soft shapes and hues of the landscape melt into one another. 

Devil's Punchbowl unfolds slowly. Musical materials are constantly developed, pushing the work forward from a relatively simple beginning to its dynamic and colorful climax. The piece opens with languorous brass slides downward. String phrases answer the brass, and woodwinds add color and wisps of melody. Gradually the strings begin their long ascending glissando, sweeping the woodwinds up to their highest register, ending the first section.

Immediately strings and low woodwinds enter with agitated multi-color, ever-changing trills and tremolos. Various instruments combine to form sinewy melodic shapes which creep slowly upward. Percussion becomes more pronounced. Brass adds rhythm and harmony. Each phrase builds on the one before as, little by little, the music becomes faster, louder, and rhythmically emphatic. Trombones and celli playing fortissimo glissandi in the lowest register propel the piece to its full orchestral climax. After the high energy of the climax the music returns briefly to the lyrical mood of the opening, ending gently. 

Devil's Punchbowl was commissioned by the Bang On A Can Festival and the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra. The commissioning of this work was made possible by a grant from the Meet The Composer/Reader's Digest Commissioning Program, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund. 

The recording of Devil's Punchbowl is of the premiere, given by Victoria Bond conducting the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra on March 21, 1994. They performed the piece beautifully. 

Below are two versions of the score. First is the final version, incorporating several sets of edits to the orchestration made after the premiere and over subsequent years, and which is dated 2009. The major changes to orchestration, emphasizing an expanded role for trombones, etc., are marked above the staves of the score. 

The second is the original score as used by Victoria Bond in 1994 (with numerous indications marked for my first set of edits).

Click here to view the revised score and listen to the recording.

Click here to view the original score and listen to the recording.

Click here to download all performance materials.

Lois V Vierk

for trumpet, cello, electric guitar, percussion, and piano/synthesizer

ca. 12'25"

The title of this piece refers to the way in which astronomers and physicists measure movement and distances of distant celestial bodies. Briefly, characteristic lines and patterns made by different elements found in the stars, etc., as observed through a spectrometer, are shifted in one direction or the other, towards the red or towards the blue end of the spectrum, depending on whether the body is moving away from us or towards us. This shift is called the "red shift".

When I wrote this work, I had the feeling of something of great mass and motion, far away, like a comet. It first seemed to move slowly, then gradually began accelerating toward us, faster and faster, until finally at great speed I felt it sweeping down upon us, through us, and back out into the heavens.

During the 1980s and into the '90s I worked on developing principles of "Exponential Structure", in which elements such as time, harmonic motion, rhythmic and timbral development, sound density, etc. are controlled mathematically by exponential factors. These are not meant to be abstract constructs, but formal ideas based on the emotional thrust of the sounds and of the piece as a whole. The harmonic motion (movement from one pitch center to another), with its ever-decreasing time segments, is the clearest expression of Exponential Structure in this work. 

The original 1989 version of Red Shift (cello, electric guitar, percussion, synthesizer) was commissioned by the Experimental Intermedia Foundation with support from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust and is available on CD from Tzadik Records. In 1991 the piece was reorchestrated as Red Shift 4 for A Cloud Nine Consort and again for Ensemble Modern.

This recording does not totally match the score.  The recording is of a 1991 orchestration of this piece for the New York ensemble A Cloud Nine Consort, without cello.  Performers are:

Gary Trosclair, trumpet/synthesizer

Mark Stewart, electric guitar

Alan Moverman, synthesizer/piano

Tigger Benford, percussion

from CD:

New World Records NWCR646 "Bang On A Can Live, Vol. 2,  Emergency Music"

Click here to view the CD on New World Records.

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.

Click here to download performance materials.

Lois V Vierk

for 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, and 2 bass trombones

ca. 21'47"

This 22-minute work unfolds slowly, and it gradually builds in intensity to a dynamic and expansive climax. At first, languid descending glissandi flow across the space from choir to choir. Little by little the materials develop, pitch relationships become more complex and faster moving, the work becomes rhythmic, glissandi get faster and change direction, the register expands. At its climax the piece settles into arpeggios across the range of the instruments, against fortissimo chords and bass trombone pedal tones.

Jagged Mesa was premiered in 1990 at St Mark's Church in the Bowery, on New York City's lower East Side, with a modern dance choreographed by Risa Jaroslow. St. Mark's Church is a big, cavernous space, with balcony around the top, and a beautiful modern dance floor below. There is a long reverberation time in the church. The piece was composed with this in mind. Brass players were in the balcony – 3 players on each side – and the composer conducted from below, on the same level as the dancers. Sounds in the piece are written to overlap. The slowly-moving tones and glissandi blend and resonate in the space.

Recording is by: 

Gary Trosclair, trumpet

Bruce Eidem, trombone

Christopher Banks, bass trombone

from CD:

Tzadik 7056 "Lois V Vierk: River Beneath the River"

Click here to view the CD on Tzadik.

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.

Click here to download all performance materials.

Lois V Vierk

for six trumpets

ca. 18'49"

Cirrus (1988) is a work for virtuoso trumpet players. It unfolds slowly and is directional and developmental. The work begins on one pitch in the trumpet's middle register, a held tone with crescendo and decrescendo. Very soon a punctuating 16th note is added at the top of the crescendo, and soon after that a slow glissando (played with the trumpet slide) is added to the phrase. These are the materials that are developed for the rest of the piece. Pitches are added to the phrase. The register expands as does the dynamic range. The 16th note figure is developed, first alternating between two pitches at a time and creating rhythmical phrases, and eventually becoming scalar passages. These passages get longer and longer, eventually moving up to the high register of the instrument, at the loudest and most articulated and fastest moving part of the piece, the climactic section. Then the scalar passages reverse their direction, coming down to the lowest register, where the glissando material has become faster, alternating back and forth between two tones. The scalar passages become shorter, dying out as the glissando again slows down. The work ends lyrically, reminding me of graceful cirrus clouds.

This is one of my pieces for ensembles of like-instruments from the 1980's. Some of my other works from this time are for 5 electric guitars, 18 trombones, 8 cellos, and 4 accordions. I consider each of these ensembles to be one "big instrument". In all of these pieces I used principles of what I call "exponential structure", in which elements such as time, harmonic motion, rhythmic and timbral development, sound density, etc. are controlled by exponential factors. These are not abstract constructs, but formal ideas based on the emotional thrust of the sounds and of the piece as a whole.

Recording is by Gary Trosclair, trumpet, from CD:

XI Records, XI 102 "Lois V Vierk: Simoom"

The composer has approved this work for performance by a soloist with a recorded track for the other parts.

Click here to view the CD on XI Records.

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.

Click here to download all performance materials.