Friday, June 01, 2007

Luxury Suite

I was very impressed by a book I read by James B. Twitchell called Living It Up; Our Love Affair with Luxury in which he writes about the three basic kinds of luxuries that we Americans seek out and enjoy. Two summers ago I decided to write a piece for cello or viola and piano (I couldn't decide which instrument worked better, so I made it possible to be played by either) with three movements that attempts to give a kind of musical "illustration" for each of the three kinds of luxuries Twitchell discusses.

"Populuxe" is a tango, "Opuluxe" is made of all kinds of opulent chords that try to give the impression of shiny precious and semi-precious stones, and "Technoluxe" is a three-part invention that inadvertently incorporates a bit of Strauss' Don Quixote.

I just put a recording of "Opuluxe" on my New Music Jukebox page. The performance here is by cellist Shannon Hayden and pianist Sonny Pickowitz, and it comes from a concert given in February of this year.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So pretty! I love it.