Swallow, Egg, Chrysanthemum is a sixteen minute work for piano and
orchestra. The title refers to symbols from Greek, Western and Asian cultures, with all of
the symbols being associated with life, death, or resurrection. Over the course of the
piece the interaction of the piano with the orchestra creates a metaphor for the journey of
the human soul through the three states of existence. Each of the three contiguous
movements carries the name of one of the symbols, whose physical aspects influence the
internal form of the movement. In recognition of the conflict between an acceptance of
life and death, and a belief in life, death and resurrection, the work contains coexisting
two- and three- part forms. At the temporal level, “Swallow” is balanced by “Egg” and
“Chrysanthemum”, and this balance is aided by a blurring of the boundary between the
last two movements.
The musical language of the work is based in part on the use of cyclical,
diminishing permutations of pitch collections, which are themselves derived from a
master pitch group. The permutations reduce the number of pitches in each collection,
creating an apparent “zeroing in” on a single pitch or “tonic goal”. As a result, moving
backwards or forwards through the reductive process can increase or decrease the musical
tension of a particular passage, by altering the number of pitches present. Twelve
harmonic areas are created using this technique, and over the course of the work each of
them is touched upon, with certain ones being of greater importance.
Foreshadowing has been used in the form of the work as a unifying device and is
present at the micro and macro levels. The form of the Introduction can be mapped onto
the first two movements, and onto the piece as a whole. In the last movement a process
of postshadowing occurs, whereby earlier material is reinterpreted and transformed in a
summation of the work. / Arts, Faculty of / Music, School of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/3364 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Pritchard, Robert Blake |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Format | 2678207 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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