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No one is more aware of this change in philosophy then the composer herself.
Although she has always been prolific, she now feels that she has found her
compositional voice and discovered how to incorporate her interest in American language
and sound within a musical custom inherited from European traditions. Thus, she is no
longer bound to the titles and subjects she had for so long utilized as a starting point:
For a quite a while I couldn’t approach music without having a concept or
a word or an idea, some way to organize infinity, that felt concrete. That
was happening mostly in the eighties. For about the last eight years I’ve
been moving more and more towards [the] abstract, like the String
Symphony I wrote last year. While it has conceptual names to the
movements the sound is about abstract string sound.13
In addition to the String Symphony and Viola Sonata, Larsen recently completed a
Trio in Four Movements for Flute, Viola, and Harp (2006) and a Concert Piece for
Bassoon and Piano (2008). The trio lacks movement titles and program notes, and its
only hint of extramusical material appears in the second movement in the form of three
boxed birdcall sets to be played by the flute and viola “in random order, improvising a
tree brimming with chatter.”14 In her Concert Piece, the bassoonist is placed in the role of
a minstrel∕poet, not to present a narrative, but to iiTell about our culture’s
expressiveness.”15 Indeed, there is still a unique and creative concept behind both pieces,
but the musical directions or accompanying program notes are quite abstract.
Larsen attributes this move away from the external to “finding her language.”16 She
admits that in the past she began a new piece with a title to guide her, but now says: “I
think really hard, ‘what can I call this piece’ which is not the way I’ve worked for almost
13 ,
Erdmann, 7.
14 Larsen, Trio in Four Movements (Minneapolis: Libby Larsen Publishing, 2006): 4.
Libby Larsen, Concert Piece for Bassoon and Piano (Minneapolis: Libby Larsen
Publishing, 2008), preface.
Larsen, interview, 8/2008.