Description
Diamond
Flute, cello, piano
Duration: 12′
2011
Score and parts included.
37 pages
Commissioned by the family of Raymond and Leola Schreurs through the Music Fund of the First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis, in honor of their sixtieth wedding anniversary.
Premiere—Trudi Anderson, flute; Lucia Magney, cello; Barbara Brooks, Minneapolis, MN 5/11
Program note
Few anniversaries were more festive than that of Raymond and Leola Schreurs, who celebrated their 60th at the First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis in May, 2011. To commemorate the event, Ray commissioned a trio for flute, cello and piano. I’ve composed a number of works celebrating such events, including Partners in Rhyme.
The instrumentation was easily agreed upon. Ray’s son, Darr, was at one time an aspiring cellist, so that instrument was a given. My flute-playing father was a member of the Rochester Chamber Trio in the 1970s with cellist Alan Harris and pianist Jared Bogardus. It had always been in my mind to write a work for that combination.
Several songs from the Schreurs’s romantic history contributed to the musical content, but the listener may not be consciously aware of them as they appear. Irving Berlin’s ‘Always,” its pitches reordered, suggested the opening theme at rehearsal letter B. It is briefly and more directly quoted at letter D. The last six notes of the first phrase of ““Drink to me only with thine eyes” (the words “I will pledge with mine”) provides the tune for the broad final section. Arthur Sullivan’s “The Lost Chord” does not actually appear, but its lyric is suggested at letter V, as the piano reviews the tonalities of the work in a series of searching chords.
Diamond was premiered at the First Unitarian Society on May 8, 2011 by Trudi Anderson, flute, Lucia Magney, cello and Barbara Brooks, piano.
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