WINDRIVER

Composer's Note:  WindRiver is a "book of the hours" of one day on the French Mediterranean coast in the town of Cassis, a small port east of Marseilles. The day in question is dominated by the mistral, a cold alpine wind which surges down the Rhone river valley to the sea, setting water, fields, trees, and light into a constant oscillation. The piece begins as a dense web of materials, a jumble of memories which sorts itself out into a series of variations, each based on one strand of the opening which was assigned to a specific instrument. Sections of the music evoke such images and processes as wind-waves moving on the water's surface, counter to the waves underneath; similar wind-waves on grassy fields; and the play of moonlight on rippling water.