Seelenruhe (“state of calm, peace of mind”) is a work for full orchestra consisting of piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets in Bb, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets in C, two tenor trombones, tuba, timpani, two percussionists, harp, piano and strings. The piece is a musical representation of a particular location in the lakes region of central Minnesota. While significant motivic material is restated and expanded throughout the piece, the broader form of the work is free and through-composed,containing four smaller sections. The ending serves as a brief reference to an earlier portion of the work through use of familiar pitch material and similar timbral combinations.
Inspiration for Seelenruhe was mainly drawn from nature. In the summer of 2015, I revisited a small lake while fishing with my family in Minnesota. Tucked away in the woods, this particular lake has no public boat access. To reach it, a person must drag their canoe down a steep, overgrown slope, before lowering the canoe into a marshy swamp. After pushing through the muskeg, the reeds finally part, giving a person their first glimpse of the lake. Seelenruhe is an aural representation of my experiences of and reflections on this beautiful bit of the northland, as well as a musical rendering of the imagery itself. To better convey the imagery and provide structure for the work, I chose certain instrument colors and pitch collections to represent specific parts in the compositional “landscape.”
The piece opens with a clarinet solo, fragments of which reappear primarily in the winds. Following an exposed introduction, more substantial, coloristic textures of the piece are introduced. Throughout the work, the “water” texture [0245689E] and condensed portions of it are played by the piano, mid-low range winds, and brass. This texture is sustained almost continuously with its intensity being varied depending upon the orchestration and layering. In contrast, the strings are employed as a singular force to invoke the thick woods that surround the lake. Sustained string passages provide a consistent core, maintaining the strings’ presence throughout the piece. Juxtaposed against the more static, continuous textures described above, the whispering breeze and birds swooping overhead are heard in the many flourishing gestures between the high winds and percussion. These intertwining motives and bits of counterpoint are occasionally punctuated by shimmering “glints” of light (harp glissandi, soloistic piccolo gestures and pinging timbres in the percussion). In this manner, the more active, rhythmically varied melodic material of the winds, percussion, and harp serves to shade and color the more staid, chordal textures of the lower winds and the strings.
In the third section of the piece, the frequency spectrum clears dramatically, bringing the strings, percussion and several solo instruments into focus. Solo cello and violin enjoy free counterpoint that expands upon melodic and rhythmic material previously introduced. As the solos conclude, a sense of familiarity returns as part of the solo clarinet passage transitions the piece into its fourth and final section. After the entire orchestra is gently reintroduced, layers of sound are gradually eliminated until only the piano rings through, ending the piece.