A common definition of a starburst, ‘the rapid formation of large numbers of new stars in a galaxy at a rate high enough to alter the structure of the galaxy significantly,’ lends itself almost literally to the nature of the performing ensemble that premiered the work, the Sphinx Virtuosi, and I wrote the piece with their dynamic in mind.” Exploding gestures are juxtaposed with gentle fleeting melodies in an attempt to create a multidimensional soundscape. Montgomery tells about the work: “This brief one-movement work for string orchestra is a play on imagery of rapidly changing musical colors.
Consider her recent album Strum: Music for Strings, which writer Thomas May describes as demonstrating “her work as both composer and performer her fluent command of classical language, of the vernacular idioms of African American spirituals and folk music, and of the intersectional potential of the string quartet and her engagement with social justice.” Then think of Jessie Montgomery, violinist, teacher, and composer with an expansive vision across multiple disciplines and deep commitment to social justice. Think of flexibility, of imagination, of curiosity, of boldness. Possibilities, potentialities, and commitments arise and are in turn embraced and explored as need be. Think of a modern musician’s career, not as a straight line, but as an ever-expanding sphere.
A warm and cozy fireside awaits us in the second movement, while outside the blasts of winter winds have the last word in a sonorous finale. Sleep follows in a second movement that ranks amongst Vivaldi’s most harmonically complex inspirations, but soon enough exhortations from the violin-turned-bugle summon us to the hunt, accompanied by yapping dogs and galloping horses.įinally, Winter: ice, snow, freezing cold, but silvery chill beauty nonetheless. The Adagio slow movement hints at a change in the weather, which duly arrives in the third-movement Presto: a summer storm depicted in all its facets, flashes of lighting, booms of thunder, and streaky splashes of warm rain.Īutumn is the time of harvest the crops come in and celebratory dancing ensues. Nevertheless the violin soloist is called upon for an array of imitations-cuckoos, turtledoves, breezes and rushing winds-in passages that often anticipate the free-form sound effects of a later age. The Summer heat sets in and a lazy torpor ensues. In the second movement, sleepy shepherds snooze under the trees while insects buzz and dogs bark in the third we join a happy dance, complete with bass drones representing bagpipes. We begin in the Spring, a scene of unruffled sunny contentment, lightly moistened by a brief spring shower.
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