Scritch
for the Left Coast Ensemble, with Gratitude
by Melinda Wagner
Chamber Music - Sheet Music

Chamber Music Oboe, Viola, Violin 1, Violin 2, Violoncello

SKU: PR.114414990

For the Left Coast Ensemble, with Gratitude. Composed by Melinda Wagner. World Premiere: Left Coast Ensemble, San Francisco, CA. Contemporary. Set of Score and Parts. With Standard notation. Composed 2009. 27+5+5+8+7+8 pages. Duration 13 minutes. Theodore Presser Company #114-41499. Published by Theodore Presser Company (PR.114414990).

UPC: 680160598960. 9.5 x 13 inches.

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Melinda Wagner plus a Meet The Composer Commissioning Music/USA Commission equals an exciting new performance piece for this combination of instruments. The commissioning groups, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble and Empyrean Ensemble, have both performed the work to excellent reviews. "A well-crafted and tasteful piece... A series of five short episodes written in sort of lyrical, expressionist mode... An appealing piece, and its evolving textures showcased the group’s excellent sense of ensemble." (Benjamin Frandzel, in the San Francisco Classical Voice) For advanced performers.
In the hands of a fine player, the oboe is so agile — yet, it is also capable of producing sustained lines of melancholic beauty.  I wanted to showcase these attributes.  The resulting piece is certainly a vehicle for virtuosic oboe playing, while being no less tricky for the strings!The piece consists of a series of episodes — skittering, playful, sometimes agitated rhythmic passages sharply contrasted with scarily slow chorale textures.  While the piece is sectional in this way, I tried to maintain a kind of narrative throughout.  That is, I wanted to place the building blocks of contrasting textures securely within the context of my own developmental style.  And I wanted each of the five parts to “fit” and work together, as if slipping into the fingers of a glove.