PROGRAM NOTE

Last modified 4 December 2025

SEASONS: Cycle II (2010-2012)

Cycle II: Soprano, Cl, Ob, Bsn, Tbn, Pf, Vl

SEASONS is a cycle of eight shorter works in two groups of four. Each involves an instrumental trio with an additional performer who acts as a commentator: either a computer musician or a vocalist. Both cyclical and progressive influences are present, providing for connectivity and flexibility, while insuring change. The subjects of the cycle are the four stages of human life (Infancy, Youth, Maturity, Age) in relation to the four stages of weather during a year (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter).

Reading through a range of poets – Stevens, Frost, Ashbery, Coleridge, Miłosz, Borges – I searched for pertinent passages, absorbing the characteristics they associated with each of my cyclical types. Copying out those passages that struck me, I looked for convergences among them. There were some surprises, but what I eventually distilled in each case felt convincing.

The last work in this Cycle is "When They Were Gone." The performative forces used include a bassoon and a trombone which are placed at a distance from a cental piano (which occupies the central role that is performed by the percussionist in Cycle I). The role of commentator, performed in Cycle I by a computer musician, is now fulfilled by a wandering soprano who sings the relevent text for each of Cycle II's four component works. Her connective role is further dimensionalized by an oboist partner who at times moves in close alignment with the soprano, but who can also complicate the picture by moving independently, then returning to a paired migratory path with the singer.

SEASONS: Cycle II was premiered on 14 July 2011 by Alarm Will Sound, Alan Pierson conducting, at the MIZZOU New Music Summer Festival in Missouri. Cycle II was co-commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts.

– Roger Reynolds