The name is absent

23

Although written three years after completion of her doctorate, Larsen considers
Black Roller a student piece. Regardless of the flaws she perceives in the composition,
she uses many of the conceptual and stylistic elements from this work in her later, mature
chamber works with viola. Conceptually, the idea of presenting a natural event as a
narrative paves the way for pieces such as Black Birds, Red Hills. Although this later
work does not intend to narrate a specific event as Black Roller does, she nonetheless
attempts in both pieces to capture the feeling of the natural world with musical sound.
Stylistically, the way in which Larsen builds and uses motives is consistent with her later
works. In general she prefers building main melodic ideas out of thirds and fourths, and
there is typically very little variation when she reuses her initial motives later in the work.

Although Larsen’s use of extramusical material and motives is indicative of her
more mature and frequently performed later works, Black Roller ^,s weaknesses lie in the
disconnected nature of the overall structure and the lack of cohesion between the melodic
and the rhythmic aspects of the piece. For example, two main motives introduced in the
opening (x and z) recur in many sections of the piece. One of these motives, x is a
melodic idea, the other, z, a rhythmic idea. By creating this disconnect between the
elements of melody and rhythm, Larsen admits that she’s “foiled [her] own architecture
immediately by not connecting rhythm and flow,”²⁹ much as she had done in her work for
Zuckerman, Ulloa ^,s Ring.

In terms of the architecture or overall structure, a set of expectations is created in
the first four sections (beginning to ∣D∣), built on the use of repeated motives, instrument
pairs, and the contrasting, mostly lyrical, viola line. All of this is suspended suddenly at

29

Larsen, interview, 7/2009.

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