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tracing the atmospheric changes from “deathly stillness” to the full-fledged force of a
tornado. Black Rock, the second movement of Black Birds, Red Hills, illustrates the pull
between motion and non-motion clearly, and the final two movements of the trio study
the motion of Georgia O’Keeffe’s black bird against the air. In Black Rock, Larsen uses
thirds to simulate the motion of sand wearing away the surface of a rock, an object at rest,
made smooth over thousands of years. Larsen’s study of motion can also be seen in her
frequent use of water imagery. References to water include the use of the musical
direction wafting in several compositions and the movement titles Flow and Drift in the
Viola Sonata. Larsen herself has commented on this in the program note accompanying
the Viola Sonata score, remarking that when composing Drift, her compositional goal
was to study if in fact “eloquence [can] come as a result of non-motion.”3 Taken a step
further, the contrast between motion and non-motion could be seen as an analogy for the
relationship between the music (motion) and the audience (non-motion).
Larsen always has her audience in mind when she composes, as each piece she
writes is composed on commission for a specific performer and performance. She thinks
carefully about the various ways people listen to music (“actively, passively, as an
escape, [or, perhaps] as a door to the deepest, unnamed emotions”)4 and what ‘accessible
contemporary music’ actually is. She also considers whether or not these issues should
“concern her composition or influence her composition process.”5 She remarks:
I write music because I want to connect with that part of the people. I
don’t want to impress other composers; I don’t care about prizes and any
of that stuff. And when you do, you can lose perspective—oh my
3 Larsen, Viola Sonata, preface.
4
Libby Larsen, “Reaching the Audience,” Symphony 47.5 (SeptemberZOctober 1996): 41.
5 Ibid.