Dependencies

Composer's Note:

Dependencies is dedicated to the complete musician, Su Lian Tan; a composer, flutist, and singer in one!

My first meeting and inspiring conversation with Su in 2007 led to a collaboration that has yielded several works, one of which is this “brace of song responses” for flute and piano. As we talked about the lieder Su had sung or appreciated, and that I had accompanied time and again, I started devising a short succession of “three Schuberts” and “three Schumanns” for the two of us to play. Dependent on both these composers’ languages as well as the “co-dependent” relationship situations found in the poetry they set, the expressive mini-world of the resulting six continuously linked vignettes comes squarely from the ambience of 19th-century German song. The six vignettes are:

1. After Schubert ‘Du bist die Ruh’: Quasi Adagio
2. After Schubert ‘Das Fischermädchen’: Molto Animato
3. After Schubert ‘Der Doppelgänger’: Molto Adagio
4. After Schumann ‘Ich grolle nicht’: Largamente
5. After Schumann ‘Mondnacht’: Hovering Hypnotically
6. After Schumann ‘Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan’: Quasi Larghetto