Description
"We Give Thanks . . . ."
A Septet for pairs of clarinets, horns, and bassoons with double bass
Written in the Summer of 2007 RB writes: "I remember writing this at my cabin in Bear Valley during the Summer of 2007, a very enjoyable time watching mountain birds out of my window" (this was his last year playing for the Bear Valley Music Festival (1992-2007)).
This composition was originally like bird calls all singing "We Give Thanks" but in many different random times and just sort of cacophonous. Originally this work was in 10/8 with a beat of 2+3+1+3+1, the beat has been kept in the revision, but has been changed to a 5/8 time signature. The work was begun as an I Ching Cycle work in I Ching Scales V.3.
The almost complete revisions in January of 2019 keeps the same set of I Ching scales (2, 21, 23, 17, 8, 25, 20, 42, 12, 3, 45, 27, 35 and 24) This set of 14 scales gives me a huge amount of information. The scales plus one small section from the original (IC 45 measures 1-4 or 161-170 in the original version in 5/8) and the motive "We Give Thanks" to me is a huge amount of information to recreate this work.
With the use of the flow into and through the 14 different scales in somewhat a random way, this work is unique in its flow through tonalities.
When I recorded the demo, where I play my horn along with sampled clarinets, cello and double bass, I found great pleasure in playing this work. This was jut about the most satisfying horn playing I have done in many moons.