Robert Hughes

two pianos

"Caccia" is a two-piano version of the larger orchestral work "Uutiqtut."

Uutiqtut is an Inuit or Inuktitut word meaning movement. It is identified with the ‘chase’—the equivalent therefore to the Italian musical term ‘caccia,’ hence the title. The opening measures set the atmosphere—an icy cold early morning in the tundra. Unease disturbs the stillness of the scene as a large herd senses that it is being stalked by a predator. A distant horn call gives an almost Sibelian cue of the approaching ‘hunt.’ A few wisps of fleeting sixteenth notes gradually gathers together into a forceful impetus which thrusts itself into the full pursuit of the chase, the main body of the work. By the end, the huge beasts are brought down in death lunges by the arctic wolves until the pathetic last breaths and shrugs expire into the cold dark Arctic landscape.