Endless Landscape (2022)

Popular in the 1820s, Myrioramas, or Endless Landscapes, were a playful fad that captured the imagination of children and adults alike. A set of cards, each depicting a different piece of a scenic view, could be rearranged in any order to create seamless landscape pictures. Lakes, rivers, mountains and other natural features provide a background, while classical ruins, fountains, castles, grottoes and shrines populate the foreground. One could imagine an early 19th century child mixing up the cards to create endless iterations of gothic romances, mythological quests, and chivalric adventures.

My interest is less in the knights and dragons than the idea of narrative emerging from variation and emotion growing from playful combinations of familiar forms. Endless Landscape exists in one particular order, but the music nonetheless abounds with echoes and resonances. Throughout its five movements there is a sense the material could be reordered and recombined in multiple ways. One constant binds them together: in each, intricate patterns provide a backdrop for long lines. These lines, like the scenes of a myriorama, etch distinct paths, cutting through the texture to shape their own dramas. The piece becomes a collection of vistas, each telling its own story with a recurring cast of characters whose trajectory shifts alongside the changing scenery.

This work was commissioned by Carnegie Hall. The World Premiere was given by Ensemble Connect in the Resnick Education Wing, Carnegie Hall, New York City on May 2, 2022.

February 28, 2023 NYU, Steinhardt, NY. NYU Contemporary Music Ensemble.

October 28, 2022 Kodak Hall, Eastman School of Music, Rochester, NY. Eastman Musica Nova Ensemble.

July 1, 2022 Porvoo Cathedral, Porvoo, Finland. Musicians from Avanti!

May 2, 2022 Resnick Education Wing, Carnegie Hall, New York, NY. Ensemble Connect.