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 flute, electric guitar, and marimba

Io (1999) features virtuoso performances on amplified flute, amplified marimba, and electric guitar. After an introductory section, a tumultuous, high energy middle section begins with short, dynamic phrases. As the work progresses, each phrase develops materials from the one before, gradually producing longer and longer phrases, and dense textures of interlocking tremolos and glissandi, with sharply articulated sounds in all instruments. A lyrical statement ends the piece.

The work is titled after Jupiter's innermost moon, which in turn is named for the mythological beautiful maiden Io, beloved of Zeus but otrmented by Zeus' wife, Hera. The moon Io was discovered by Galileo in 1610. In the 1970's it was discovered to have over 100 active volcanoes, the only known volcanoes outside the earth. At times the volcanoes shoot huges plumes of sulfur up to 300 kilometers into the sky. Io is caught in a ravitational tug of war. It is periodically nudged out of regular orbit by two nearby moons, Europa and Ganymede, then pulled back by the massive gravitational field of Jupiter. Io is constantly squeezed and distorted, like a rubber ball held in the hand. The friction produced by this action produces enormous heat--enough to melt the rock deep within and cause the great volcanoes and lava flow.

This piece was commissioned by Ensemble L'ART POUR L'ART of Hamburg, Germany. It was recorded on flutist Margaret Lancaster's CD "Io" on New World Records.

Recording is by:

Margaret Lancaster, flute

Larry Polansky, electric guitar

Matthew Gold,  marimba

from CD:

New World Records 82720 "Io - Margaret Lancaster, flutes"

Click here to view the CD on New World Records.

Click here to view the score.

Lois V Vierk

for cello and marimba

The demon star is Algol in the constellation Perseus. Algol (literally "the demon's head") was observed for over a century to periodically get bright, then suddenly dim, but no one knew why. It wasn't until 1782 that the astronomer John Goodricke offered the explanation that Algol is really a pair of stars orbiting around a common center. Approximately every 69 hours the dimmer star passes in front of the brighter star, partially blocking its light, to someone watching on earth. About 100 years later Goodricke's explanation was confirmed by more sophisticated scientific observation. He had made the first identification of an "eclipsing binary" star. Astronomers now know of over 50 eclipsing binaries. This is the imagery that inspired my piece Demon Star.

This work sometimes brings one or the other of the instruments to the foreground, eclipsing the other, as it were, contrasting their sounds. At other times it blends and intertwines the instruments to form new timbres. In places I've asked the two players to make the cello sound more like a marimba and the marimba more like a cello--no easy task! I've asked them to be extremely sensitive to attacks of notes, to the sound envelopes, to the way in which sounds are accented, articulated or sustained, to the way dynamics are played, and so on. Throughout the piece, dynamic patterns, pitch slides in the cello, and harmonic and rhythmic materials are constantly being developed. As the work progresses, it changes from highly energetic, rhythmic, dynamic music, to a gentler, lyrical ending.

Recording is by:

Theodore Mook, cello

Matthew Gold, marimba

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.