Edward Smaldone

Orchestra 2(2+picc)222 - 4230 - timp - strings

Composer's Note:

The Beauty of Innuendo was composed at the invitation of conductor Daijiro Ukon and first performed by him and the Oratorio Sinfonica Japan, in Tokyo in March 2013.

The work takes its title from a line in a Wallace Stevens poem, 13 Ways of looking at a Blackbird: “I do not know which to prefer,/the beauty of inflections/or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling, or just after.” The line indicates the dilemma of the choice between the beauty of thing we experience, or the beauty of the innuendo of that experience, the memory of it. I found this an intriguing idea, since the orchestra’s “whistling” is both experienced immediately, but also lives on in the memory of the listener. The piece explores a wide variety of emotions and musical fabrics, and builds to a chaotic and furious passage, before settling down and finally dissipates into a single note, held by the violins, as it transitions to the memory of the listener.