fault lines

FAULT LINES (2009) Purchase Online

Premiere: May 21, 2010 by Nicholas DiEugeno (violin), Roberta Crawford (viola), John Haines-Eitzen (cello) and Xak Bjerken (piano)
Duration: 10'

Instrumentation: Violin, Viola, ‘Cello, Piano

Commissioned by Mayfest

Program Note:
I composed most of Fault Lines while living briefly in L.A., where the continuous buzz of activity coexists with one’s constant half-awareness of the earth’s underlying tectonic discontent. Life in that great city, so often associated with sunshine and frivolity, glamour and wealth, hard bodies and the pursuit of eternal youth, attains a unique and surprising – and perhaps ironic – richness when considered in the context of these occasional subterranean rumblings. Quaking earth might be a gently threatening reminder from the gods that beneath L.A.’s extravagant façade, massive, ground-shaking movements – capable both of toppling buildings and forging mountains – are at work…

Fault Lines shifts between various emotional and textural landscapes, while remaining more or less fixated on a few underlying ideas. The opening, for piano alone, is sparse and melancholy, and soon becomes bright, visceral and vigorous; such contrasts pervade most of the music’s 10 minutes. Despite these contrasts, the work as a whole is constructed from subtly shifting, descending chord progressions – as if, like tectonic plates, the music were slowly but persistently struggling toward a rooted stability that, as in life, seems always to elude us…

– James Matheson