Summary: | Now and Forever is a thesis in two parts: a twelve-minute piece for orchestra and a text providing an analysis of the piece. The orchestra consists of two flutes (flute 2 doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets in B-flat, two bassoons, four horns in F, two trumpets in C, two tenor trombones, one bass trombone, two percussion and strings. The work features the use of an original text as the underlying program, the use of golden section proportions as a principal organisational device, a rising semitone motive as the foundation for melodic, harmonic and registral development, and the intermittent appearance of micropolyphonic textures. In some passages, the harmonic series is the basis of pitch field development, notably in section VI, which consists of an orchestral evocation of the sounds of an aeolian harp.
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