Urban Pastoral (2023)

Program Notes:

“Urban Pastoral” is a piece that addresses the idea of natural beauty in an urban environment. It focuses especially on the impression of an urban nightscape – the amber glow of street lamps filtered through trees; clouds dimly lit by light pollution from one side and by the moon from the other; fireflies glowing in a park; and drops of dew shimmering on glass.

The horn has long been associated with the hunt - “alla caccia”- and the pastoral. The natural horn’s ability to showcase its easy and ready access to the upper partials of the overtones series deepens this association with nature – the overtones themselves seem to evoke a fundamental connection with the natural world as the series’ pattern resonates everywhere around us.

The piece relies on this weighty association and sets it against the fixed, equal temperament of the piano. On its own, the natural horn is bound to a set of specific pitches from the overtone series. The movement of the performer’s right hand effects the timbre and pitch of the horn allowing them to play pitches outside of the series. However, the piano is able to access any pitch at anytime with the compromise that its intonation doesn’t match perfectly with the natural horn’s overtones series. The rub between these two temperaments serves as an analogy for the contradictory coexistence of the urban pastoral.