Longlac Tableaux
Longlac Tableaux
a multi-movement work for organ and piano (20')
in five movements
Completed in January, 2015.
Commissioned by Kenneth Munro for premiere by Duo Majoya (organist Marnie Giesbrecht and pianist Joachim Segger). Dedicated to the memory of Robert George Munro.
This digital download (a .ZIP file) includes a full score, an organ-only part, and a piano-only part (all PDFs).
Program note
Longlac Tableaux is an exploration of life in nature. Commissioned in memory of Robert George Munro, the piece is shaped around the passing of a life, of a day, or of a season. At the beginning, the piano emerges mysteriously from silence and grows into the organ’s canonic fanfares in “Sunrise over Long Lake.” The whimsical treacheries of youth are explored in the jaunty interplay of the second movement’s Tarantella, entitled “Black Fly Season.” A meditative third movement paints the vibrant gentleness of maturity in “The Aurora in Snow.” Then emerges a darker picture: a solemn cortège in “Logs on the River.” Finally, rebirth and lasting joy resound in a closing Ode, “The Silver Steeple,” in which new music glitters with reminiscences of Saint-Saëns’ “Organ” Symphony and the hymn Victory (“The strife is o’er”).
“Wadsworth’s “Longlac Tableaux” was comical and delightful: the nastiness of “Black Fly Season” was unmistakable in the ever-present buzzing figures either in the piano or the organ, with occasional slaps from the organ part; “The Aurora in Snow” created a sense of stillness, a mesmerizing moment frozen in time exploiting the upper registers of the organ in contrast to the more percussive repetitive figures in the piano.”