The name is absent

CHAPTER 2: SUBJECTS AND SUGGESTIONS: THE INCORPORATION
OF EXTRAMUSICAL MATERIAL INTO LIBBY LARSEN’S POST

Minnesota Orchstra residency chamber music

Transition to a New Phase

During Larsen’s residency with the Minnesota Orchestra from 1983-1987, her
compositional style began to evolve. Perhaps the most significant aspect of this evolution
in style was a new approach to outside sources. Rather than using extramusical material
to create programmatic music like Black Roller and Cajun Set, she began to use
extramusical material as a general guide or inspiration in her instrumental compositions.
This is a subtle and gradual change, but it is evident in many of her chamber works from
this period, including Black Birds, Red Hills, a trio for clarinet, viola, and piano.

In 1985, two years prior to the composition of Black Birds, RedHills, Larsen
completed her first symphony for the Minnesota Orchestra, Symphony: Water Music.
This piece, which Larsen describes as a “poetic symphony in four movements,”¹ is
accompanied by a lengthy program note in which she discusses the various sound
combinations she employed to evoke the motion of water. Her desire to recreate her
feeling of the subject, rather than providing the audience with a narrative, is explained in
an article she wrote at the time: “In [the] music I want to give the listener not the sound

' Libby Larsen “Water Music”

http://libbylarsen.com/index.php?contentID=236&profileID=1196&startRange=
(accessed 5 February 2010).

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