Larry Goves (b.1980) - Four Letter Words

Credits

Psappha Ensemble

Four Letter Words

The four letter words are not what you might think: they belong to a sequence of poems by Matthew Welton - poems made, indeed, of four letter words and nothing else. 'Push your door shut', the text begins, 'Turn down your light.' But this tone of gently calming advice, encouraged in the text by the fact that 'your' is a four letter word, changes. And so does the music. A set of songs becomes a game, a mad scene, a combat: interpret it how you will. The clarinettist, who plays only one low note in the first song, comes to challange the singer for central position. Repercussions are acted out on the concert platform.

Beyond the drama, or beneath it, one may note how the composer uses varied repetition - and a gift for the slyly potent phrase, vocal or instrumental-to maintain a state of attention at once alert and laid back. The horn figure heard at the start, and directly repeated, seems to set the tone for the whole piece. From this lazy horn solo will grow what high heat we'll hear - also what cold, what cool.

Four Letter Words was composed for Psappha in 2007

Paul Griffiths © 2008