Dropping Pearls in Ponds

solo piano

2023

duration: 3' 30"

This piece was first premiered on the 15th of June 2023 by Tristan Vermeulen in an RCM Faculty Concert.

The title of this piece stems from the image of pale, shimmering pearls being dropped into a dark, inky lake. The moonlight on the water and the reflection of the pearl seem to hold more gravity than the pearl’s impact itself. In the first section we hear a meditative dropping of individual pearls, whereas in the second section, the pearls are tossed into the water, almost pouring in, until there is no more left.

I tap into this imagery by developing a pitch class system, and uses 12 tone pattern processing (P0, P1 etc.) to generate harmonic material that phases over each other like the reflections of water. I use these processes in an intuitive sense, not using a row system but pulling from different processes to create a flowing harmonic structure.