- Ariadnemusic (1984)
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Eleanor Hovda
for flute, clarinet in Bb, violin, viola, violoncello, piano, and percussion
ca. 14'42"
For the Boston Musica Viva, Richard Pittman, music director
Click here to view revised performance notes.
Click here to hear a recording by the Prism Players on the Eleanor Hovda Collection CD on Spotify.
- Leaning Into and Away (1994)
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Eleanor Hovda
for flute, oboe, clarinet in Bb, percussion, piano, and string quartet
ca. 12'51"
Commissioned by the Cuicani Orchestra Project, with support from the US/Mexico Fund for Culture
Dedicated to the memory of Manuel Enriquez
I use the title Leaning Into and Away because the piece grew out of many thoughts about and experiences dancing and making music for dancers. I found myself focussing particularly on the energies of running on the ground and leaping into space, and the flow of energy involved in any physical moves from balance to suspension. I also wanted to work with the idea of excavating sounds from the bone and sinew of piano, wind, string, and percussion instruments – as dancers draw energy from deep inside their bodies.
Click here to view the performance notes.
Click here to hear a recording by the Prism Players on Spotify.
- Regions (1971, rev. 1997)
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Eleanor Hovda
for flute, clarinet in Bb, violin, grand piano, and crotales
ca. 12'40"
Commissioned by the Atlanta Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, California EAR Unit, and Boston Musica Viva through the Meet the Composer/Readers Digest Commissioning Program
Click here to view an addendum related to pages 4 - 11.
Click here to hear a recording by the California EAR Unit on Spotify.
- Snapdragon (1993)
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Eleanor Hovda
for flute, oboe, Bb clarinet, bassoon, horn in F
Commissioned by the Holland Festival for the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble
Snapdragon is written for the Nederlands Wind Ensemble, and was completed on May 19, 1993. I use the title Snapdragon because it refers to a game** where raisins are snatched from burning flames. I wanted to work with extremes of energy (from relaxed to intense-but-inward, to most extroverted, flung energy). I also wanted to work with the idea of excavating sounds from the bone and sinew of wind instruments: the expansions of single pitches, either fingered or otherwise altered, which can happen when extremes of breath control, additions of auxilllary keys and alternatve fingerings are used. I imagine the energy of watching the flames and then swiftly snatching at the raisins. I imagine the energy of both participating in the game and watching the action.
**a Victorian-era game played during the winter, particularly on Christmas eve
Click here to hear a recording by the Prism Players on the Eleanor Hovda Collection CD (Spotify).
- Fields (1987)
-
Eleanor Hovda
for orchestra
ca. 16'00"
This piece was performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra with Principal Guest Conductor Ilan Volkov on Thursday 21 October 2021 at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.
Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.
- Earthrunner (1966)
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Eleanor Hovda
for flute, timpani, and double bass
- Lemniscates (1988)
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Eleanor Hovda
for string quartet
ca. 18'00"
"Lemniscates was composed for the Kronos String Quartet to be premiered at the New Music America, Miami, during the December 1988 Festival. The piece was developed, in large part, to work in the barely audible range. It is about excavating "sound around the sound," a sonic resource of stringed instruments rarely used in an acoustical setting.
The title Lemniscates derives from the Latin word "Lemniscus," meaning "with hanging ribbons." In mathematics, the word refers to the figure-of-eight shape, and is defined as follows: "the locus of the foot of the perpendicular from the center of a conic on its axis." The dance theorist, Rudolph von Laban, uses the word to describe figure-of-eight energy shapes drawn by the body in space. I use the word in all of the above contexts - to describe "ribbons of sound," to illustrate techiniques of bowing, and to provide a metaphor for the spacial motion of the sound ribbons, and the choreographed sonic scultpure created by the Kronos Quartet."
Click here to read a letter from Hovda to David Harrington, containing additional performance notes.
- Music from "The Proclamation" (1966, rev. 1968)
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Eleanor Hovda
for solo flute
Written for David Gilbert
Music from the Proclamation was composed in 1966 as the musical component of a play "The Proclamation" by Iva Martirano. The script called for a flutist, a man (mime), and a woman (actor). The Flute, played and acted by David Gilbert, presided over the flow of action between the Man and the Woman, and had continuous shifting role-involveent throughout the play. It was performed at the Roundhouse, in Urbana, Illinois. It was revised, in concert version, in 1968.
I had become interested in considerations of breathing with respect to sound production, energy shape composing, and timbral painting as well as to the problems of periodicity (a natural resultant of inhale/exhale cycles of wind and brass players and singers). The necessity of producing a long (ca. 25 minutes), evolving statement for the flute character provided a "psychological form," a theatrical context, within which some ways to foil periodicity in a flute solo could be developed and shaped.
David Gilbert, a flutist and composer, had already developed new techniques using inhale and exhale melodically, vowel and consonant sounds, and alternate methods of sound production to enlarge the timbral palette. These included "air" sounds, combinations of air/pitch, pitch color, and weight change by alternate fingerings, "chords," etc. The compositional availability of "air" sounds combined with vowel and consonant articulations (which can be produced during inhale as well as exhale cycles) served to free me from the inevitability of the "sound/take-a-breath, sound/take-a-breath...n" loop.
Factors governing the durational limits of inhales and exhales were explored. For example, the greater the "force" required to play an inhaled/exhaled segment, the shorter the possible duration of that segment. Parameters which combine to determine the total "force" include registral placement, dynamics, density (ex.: single pitches/"chords"; flute alone/flute with humming; method of sound production (modo ordinario, pitch, and "air" combinations); phonetic articulation (vowel and/or consonant sounds, simple or complex, such as Ho versus rtchu with a rolled r).
This piece has been a process, in three general stages: First, by developing sound materials from combinations of parameters which focused on extents of time, weights and energy, and flow shapes, I hoped to avoid the natural periodicity of inhale and exhale cycles. Second, the sound material took shape and life when molded within the theatrical context/content (psychological form) of the play. Third, the flute music was revised into a concert version wherein the interaction between the performer and the material became the event, and the "meaning" is a timbral/energy flow soundscan.
Click here to view the script.
- Boundaries (1989)
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Eleanor Hovda
for four flutes and four double basses
ca. 7'11"
Boundaries is about extents and limits. The piece makes use of the differences and similarities of the instruments, including variables in dynamic and pitch ranges, timbre and articulation (bowed, plucked, blown). The energy of extremes and stretched perimeters contrasted to dense overlays, works with ideas of expanding and conracting sound-fields.
Click here to listen to the recording by Anonymous on the Eleanor Hovda Collection CD on Spotify.
- A Quartet (1971)
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Eleanor Hovda
for voice, flute, and Flexitone
- Spring Music with Wind (1973)
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Eleanor Hovda
for solo piano
ca. 11'45"
Piano piece for Carla Hübner
This piece uses seven areas of the inside of a grand piano. These seven areas are played by five different mallets and a glass bottle. Voice sounds ("air" sounds, humming, whistling) are used to amplify or extend piano textures.
Click here to view the performance notes.
Click here to listen to the recording by Lee Humphries on the Eleanor Hovda Collection CD (Spotify).
Click here to listen on Innova Recordings.
- Leaning Into and Away (trio)
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Eleanor Hovda
for soprano, contrabass, and percussion
ca. 12'51"
- Traces (1990)
-
Eleanor Hovda
for english horn/oboe and electric bass
- Strings (1989)
-
Eleanor Hovda
for violin and piano
For Stephanie Chase, commissioned by the Schubert Club
Strings was commissioned by the Schubert Club for violinist Stephanie Chase. I used metaphors from multidimensional string theories, where energy is conceived as infinite "strings" in space/time, and the Universe is said to have extra hidden dimensions. I have been working, for some time, on articulating lemniscates (figure-of-eight ribbons) as sonic sculptur. I'm also intrigued by an often unexplored timbral resource of stringed instruments: the "sound around the sound" of overtones, harmonics.
I visualize the piece as sound choreography, where the violin spins sonic "strings" and the piano is resonator, afterimage, or "shadow universe." The pitch structures in the piece derive from the harmonic series, and are shaped by bending, twisting and stretching those basic pitch relationships as much as possible without "breaking" them, or turning them into something else. The piano functions as an accumulating resonance field throughout the piece.
- Song in High Grasses (1985)
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Eleanor Hovda
for soprano, flute, cello, and bowed piano
ca. 12'14"
Song in High Grasses is written for Charlotte Regni, and is made around a yodel-like call which she learned as a child living in Zaire, Africa. The piece is a sonic visualization of an imaginary outdoor space with tall grasses, large plants, warm winds, and somnulant insects, birds, and beasts. The call-song floats around and dances with the ambience of wind, rustling grasses, and creature sounds.
- Piece for Flute Alone (1963)
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Eleanor Hovda
for solo flute
- Ondes Doubles (1971)
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Eleanor Hovda
for flute, viola, harp, and Ondes Martenot
- No Snow (1990)
-
Eleanor Hovda
for violin, guitar, clarinet, and bowed piano
- Movement for String Quartet (1963)
-
Eleanor Hovda
for string quartet
- Journeymusic (1981)
-
Eleanor Hovda
for flute, clarinet in Bb, violin, contrabass, piano, and percussion
ca. 8'00"
Commisioned by the Jerome Foundation for the Orchestra of Our Time, Joel Thome, music director
Click here to view the performance notes.