Commissioned in 1994 by Kathleen Vaught Farner
Duration: 18min.
NOTES
The Sonata for Horn and Piano is based, at a variety of levels,
on the music of Norway. The Norwegian folk trumpet is the lur, made usually of birchbark,
and played frequently by herders- either for entertainment or for calling the herds or
fellow herders. Because it, like the french horn, plays primarily in the upper ranges
of its harmonic series, music for the lur tends to emphasize what we call the lydian mode-
a scale with a raised fourth scale degree. In fact, much Norwegian folk music uses this
lydian scale- from folk songs to the music of the famous Hardanger fiddle.
Throughout the three movements of the Sonata, this characteristic scale is prominent.
The first movement (which is inspired by paintings of Edvard Munch) is dark, mysterious and
very energetic. The second movement is a tone poem, inspired by a field recording of a cow
herder singing a lokk, a cow-calling song, followed by the sound of the cows with their bells
passing by and off into the distance. In this piece, the horn is imitating the sound of a lur.
The third movement is based on playing techniques of a folk fiddle. The lively dance tune
emphasizes the same lydian scale, but also the characteristic sudden shifts of the melodic
phrase up and down as the fiddler plays on different strings, and the delightfully unpredictable
meters of Norwegian folk dances.
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