The Mountains in the Clouds (2019)
for Corvus New Music Ensemble Ensemble, 5 minutes
Instrumentation
violin, cello, and percussion
Premiere
Corvus New Music Ensemble, Denali National Park, Alaska, July 22, 2019
Listen
excerpt 1
excerpt 2
Corvus, Fairbanks (AK) Summer Arts Festival, July 2019
Program Notes
The Mountains in the Clouds was composed during my participation in Composing in the Wilderness in Alaska in July 2019. This three-week experience traveling in Alaska’s Denali National Park and Preserve and then composing a piece for premiere at the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival was a transformative personal experience, shared with an international group of fellow composers at all stages of professional development. The instrumental choice was randomly assigned at the beginning of the experience; the piece was written in three days and premiered the following week by Corvus, resident new music ensemble for the FSAF.
The title reflects the clouds (and smoke from that summer’s wildfires) surrounding the mountain peaks during my visit to Denali. The piece itself is descriptive, with headings depicting places, sights, and experiences encountered in the park.
One of the most fascinating things about Denali is the question of scale: how nature operates on an immense range of activity from massive mountain ranges to the vibrant life beneath grasses and plants. Scale applies on a musical level, as well. The piece is built one musical idea which generates each section, but at different scales.
This piece opens with an impression of Denali’s great mountain vistas - music which is big in every way (the opening heading is “Approaching the Mountains”). The music is conceived orchestrally, and yet written for an ensemble of three musicians. Navigating that scale difference – writing “bigger” than a given ensemble to make it sound larger – is a central aspect of the piece.
The middle section evokes the vibrant plant and animal life under the tundra and mossy turf of Denali. The sound of the wind rustling through the forest of spruce trees – at that moment, the only sound to be heard – is also captured here.
The closing section returns to the opening grandeur, and ends with the clouds parting to reveal the mountains (Mt. Denali itself was shrouded in clouds for our visit, with only a partial view possible, but the clouds parted from many other peaks in dramatic fashion).
—Andrew Earle Simpson