Brightside for Orchestra

Brightside is a thirteen-minute piece for symphony orchestra (woodwinds by twos plus piccolo, four horns, two trumpets in C, two tenor trombones, one bass trombone, one tuba, timpani, xylophone, vibraphone, and strings) inspired by my life on Brightside Drive in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The different compositional materials used in the piece reflect different aspects of my life.I see life as an interplay between steadiness and contrast and the search for balance between the two. This view of life reminds me of the rondo-like structures seen in ritornello forms of the Baroque era, and this is the basis of the form of Brightside. In the ritornello sections (which I designate as A1, A2, A3, and A4) I sought to depict the idea of gradual transition in the context of overall stability. The harmony is principally derived from minor and diminished triads with common notes, but other notes are added as the piece develops. The episodes (B, C, and D) which represent starker contrasts in my life, are built from contrasting materials including twelve-tone collections and octatonic scales. I also used timbral contrast to enhance the form, reworking ideas from the Baroque concerto grosso. The ritornellos generally make use of the orchestral tutti and the episodes focus on particular families of the orchestra. (B: strings and percussion; C: woodwinds and two horns; D: brass and percussion.) However, I have allowed periodic deviations from this plan, based on my intuition, to avoid the emergence of undesirable predictability. The harmonic plan aims at a long line of development by organizing tonal centers of the sections. The ritornellos work their way through the tonal centers C, Eb, Gb, and A. The episodes and the coda are comparatively unstable, beginning with C#, E, G, and Bb and ending with D, F, Ab, and C. So, the harmonic plan is based on three diminished seventh chord axes, except for the "correction" applied in order to end on C. The dramatic arc of the piece is fairly "standard" with a climax approximately at the two-thirds mark.

Department dc:contributor.department

Music

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Behbahani, Yassaman

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Rapoport, Alexander

• Composition
• Music
• Orchestra

Statement dc:rights

• Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1807/123568

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:utoronto.scholaris.ca:1807/123568