Steven Bryant

ImPercynations evolved from a similar impulse as another work of mine, Chester Leaps In, both of which are a part of my Parody Suite. Melodic fragments from various pieces of music tend to embed themselves in my mind, and repeat in short little loops incessantly, necessitating some sort of exorcism.

In the case of Chester Leaps In, I took the initial phrase of the melody and juxtaposed it with radically different music, in order to provide some humorous contrast (and perhaps also to try and jar the whole thing loose from my head).

With ImPercynations, I took a different approach with the source music, and used various melodies and melodic fragments from each of the six movements of Lincolnshire Posy as foils for each other, so that the entire work is built from material drawn from Percy Grainger’s original. The motivic and rhythmic foundation of the piece is from the first movement, Lisbon, which provides the (mostly) 6/8 meter and the majority of musical material, followed closely by melodies from the sixth movement (The Lost Lady Found), with sprinklings of fragments from the middle movements.

Grainger described his Lincolnshire Posy, based on English folk-songs, as a bouquet of musical “wildflowers.” If his music is a bouquet, then ImPercynations is the genetically-altered, crossbred, hybrid offspring of his wildflowers – a musical “Franken-flower.” Welcome to my laboratory.

Commissioned by: Joe Brashier and the Valdosta State University Wind Ensemble in honor of Ed Barr's years of service to the Department of Music

Premiered

20 April 2002, Joseph Brashier and the Valdosta State University Wind Ensemble

Technical Info

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