August Music (for 2 flutes and string quartet)

duration

14 min

instrumentation

2fl, 2vn, va, vc

premiered by

Constella Festival of Music and Fine Arts

commissioned by

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August Music (for 2 flutes and string orchestra)

Ingmar Bergman explains the title of his 1955 comedy Sommarnattens leende (Smiles of a Summer Night) in a signal line of dialogue. Upright in her wheelchair, an aged doyenne tartly observes to her footman that the summer night smiles three times: once, for the fools, who know nothing: once for the lovers, who know too little; and lastly for the old, who — like herself — know too much. In August Music, I've reversed the order of the smiles — the gleeful fools have the last word — and saluted that worldly doyenne by renaming her movement for her wisdom, rather than her age. Otherwise, these three brief portraits — rueful, rapt, and headlong by turns — are meant both as a salute to that rich film and as a gift to Sir James and to Lady Jeanne Galway. Fools they are not, but I know few musicians (or spouses) at once so loving and so wise.