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Composer's Note:
My Chamber Symphony, composed in 2009, is in three movements, following a moderate-slow-fast format. In the longer first movement, the music seemed to want to rove over and explore a particularly wide spectrum of ideas and harmonic tendencies, and part of the fun was to try to create seamless connections between disparate regions. Exploring the range of color combinations possible with an ensemble of just about one of every instrument was another preoccupation. A third one was writing a movement that gradually “gathered steam” as it progressed, but in a way that the listener would not find obtrusive. The second movement is a simple song (for a reduced instrumentation), with the first violinist as soloist. In the third movement, many of the gestures of the first two movements are recast, but now in the context of a rambunctious finale.
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Reviews:
“In Louis Karchin’s Chamber Symphony…. continuously reconfigured textures, dynamics and timbres wove spells so magical that debates about harmonic language were beside the point.
--Allan Kozinn, New York Times
“Rippling waves of sound punctuated the first movement of the Symphony, rich with intriguing timbres. The textures thinned for the sparer slow movement, followed by a riotous explosion of color in the exuberant finale.”
--Vivien Schweitzer, New York Times
“This work has the kinds of sounds one suspects the ever-innovative Haydn might have explored if he were alive today. There is a luminosity and translucency to the sonorities…..the Chamber Symphony is certainly a masterpiece.”
--Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International