CHAPTER 3: A NEW DIRECTION WITH ABSOLUTE MUSIC: THE GENERAL
INFLUENCE OF AMERICAN SOUND IN LARSEN’S VIOLA SONATA
Compositional Development
BlackBirds, Red Hills began as a song cycle, with a set of words and images that
inspired and guided Libby Larsen in the compositional process. Although she revised it
as a piece of instrumental chamber music, a trio, it retains both the titles, which reference
her source material, and the original descriptive program notes, giving it a programmatic
element regardless of whether or not the images which inspired it are shown to the
audience.
As Larsen’s style has evolved and matured, she has moved away from feeling
“overwhelmed” by the abstract nature of instrumental music, towards embracing music
without any program notes or descriptive titles. This transformation was gradual, but
prior to the later half of the 1990’s, only a handful of works in Larsen’s instrumental
catalogue lack evocative titles.1 Of these few compositions without programmatic titles,
often there is a subtitle or other note tracing the work’s genesis. This is the case in
Larsen’s Sonata in One Movement for organ, which is based on the troubadour song
Kalenda Mayaf however a few pieces, like her Concert Piece for Tuba and Piano (1993)
do indeed appear to be rare examples of absolute music from her early period.
ɪ See Appendix B for a complete listing of Larsen’s chamber music organized by date.
2 Libby Larsen, Sonata in One Movement (Boston: E. C. Schirmer, 1986), 2.