SOUNDSCAPE for Bassoon and Piano

Composer's note:  Soundscape for Bassoon and Piano was written for Maurice Pachman. The breadth of its technical demands in agility, tone control, register extremes and multi-phonics was to match his enthusiasm for new music and his instrumental expertise. The form is fluid but not casual. Twelve-tone devises and an invented scale share in the basic structural format. The shifts in tempo and sonority may suggest an uneasy landscape of sound - somber valley, threatening hills, a sweep of scud, perhaps a lowering sun.  The cadenza for the bassoon was composed for the recording made at Bennington in 1979. The original score requests an improvisation by both players.