Lois V Vierk

for orchestra

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 head 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 fro 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.

Click here to view the original score.

Lois V Vierk

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

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 star, 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.

Lois V Vierk

for cello, electric guitar, percussion, and synthesizer

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

Red Shift was commissioned by the Experimental Intermedia Foundation with support from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust.

Recording is by:

Ted Mook, cello

David Seidel, electric guitar

Jim Pugliese, percussion

Lois V Vierk, synthesizer

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.

Lois V Vierk

for piano/synthesizer, flute, clarinet, bassoon, viola, contrabass, and percussion

Hiking a trail to high altitudes takes you through an ever changing landscape. The dark closeness of the forest gradually gives way to increasing spaciousness. Light shimmers in as hints of the grandeur ahead draw you up the mountain. Arriving at the timberline and then at the mountain top gives you a spectacular view of the land below and the sky all around you.

This work is in two continuous sections. The first section begins with winds and strings in the mid range, playing held notes and slow glissandi. Simple grace notes are added. Little by little a dense texture is built as grace notes are transformed into ascending pentatonic scale passages in winds and strings. This is overlaid contrapuntally with a piano texture of ornate grace notes, tremolos and trills, gradually moving up over the full range of the keyboard. Cymbals roll at the climax.

The second section begins under the ringing cymbals with slow, open fifths in the lowest register of the winds and strings. The sounds are dark and languid, with many sliding tones. Very gradually more percussive sounds are added. Phrases are becoming shorter, notes are getting faster, shifting from whole notes to half notes to quarters. The piano begins a bright and rhythmic punctuation of the phrase, introducing 16th notes. The development of this rhythmic and harmonic figure gradually moves the piece to its climactic conclusion. Finally all the instruments combine to form one texture--dynamic, rhythmic, covering the entire instrumental range.

Timberline was commissioned for the Relâche Ensemble of Philadelphia by Kobrand, Inc., importer of Champagne Taittinger.

A CD recording was released on New World Records -- Lois V Vierk: Words Fail Me, New World 80766.

Recording is by the Relâche Ensemble of Philadelphia, conducted by Lloyd Shorter, from CD:

New World Records 80766 "Lois V Vierk: Words Fail Me"

Click here to view the CD on New World Records.

Click here to view the score.