I Crossed the Samuel Becket Bridge at Dusk (2018)

for Flutist & Harp 

Duration: 11 minutes

Orchestration: piccolo, alto flute, bass flute (one player), harp.

Premiere: by Isabel Gleicher and Hannah Lash in March 2018 at the Third Street Music School Settlement.

Recording: by Fanny Wyrick-Flax and Hannah Lash for Innova

Purchase Album/Download: here

Program Notes:

I Crossed the Samuel Beckett Bridge at Dusk was composed for two performers, a harpist and a single flute player playing piccolo, alto flute, and bass flute. The piece be- gan to take shape during my professorship at Trinity College, Dublin between 2012 and 2014. Home of the Book of Kells, the college is one of the most famous tourist sites in Dublin, and my office window looked onto its square. Looking back, I remember that there were two dueling buskers, a tin whistle player and an Irish harp player, both of whom I could clearly hear from my window, and who may have provided some impetus for the piece.

The piece draws its name from one of my great discoveries in Dublin: the Samuel Beckett Bridge, designed by the architect Santiago Calatrava, located in the newer tech hub by the harbor. A Calatrava bridge seems to be the sign that a European city has “arrived.” Cynics have observed that the Beckett bridge, which looks like a harp on its side, resembles the Guinness beer harp. At night, the area around the bridge is mostly desert- ed. As an observer, you are alone with the harbor fog. I distinctly remember looking up at its suspension cables (the “harp strings”) and imagining a music (for harp). At the same time, I was working on a number of pieces that used obsessive ostinatos, some of which also made it into this work.