Details
- The Far Field
- Orchestra
Recordings
Program Notes
The Far Field by Canadian composer Michael Matthews was commissioned by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra with the assistance of the Canada Council; the world premiere, conducted by Kazuhiro Koizumi, was given on February 12, 1988.
The composer offers the following comments concerning The Far Field. “For me it is difficult to describe my work or my methods of composition, because I find that in doing so I am attempting to verbalize concepts and procedures which are essentially non-verbal, and of course I always hope that my music will speak for itself. There are however certain things of a general nature which can be said. When I write the music evolves as a series of sonic images, which I attempt to structure into a coherent whole. The larger formal components of the work usually come first, with the moment-to-moment details added and arranged later. There are several drafts of a piece, each one more refined in terms of these details. The joy and excitement of this particular composition was in being able to create for an orchestra – an ensemble whose sound potential is enormous.”
“The overall title of this two-movement work, as well as the subtitles of the individual movements (The Windy Cliffs of Forever and The Dying of Time) are taken from Theodore Roethke’s poem, The Far Field, which was published in 1964 in a volume of poems with the same title. The images which this poem created in my mind served as a springboard for beginning the work, but the finished piece is not intended to be a musical ‘representation’ or ‘interpretation’ of the poem. It could perhaps be better described as a series of distant echos of the poem. My work has been affected by many other composers, especially Gustav Mahler, Arnold Schoenberg, Witold Lutoslawski and Joseph Schwantner. Their influences can be heard in a general way in The Far Field, and at some points in the piece there are references of a more specific nature to both Mahler and Schoenberg.”
I learned not to fear infinity,
The far field, the windy cliffs of forever,
The dying of time in the white light of tomorrow,
The wheel turning away from itself,
The sprawl of the wave,
The on-coming water.
Theodore Roethke