Philip Carlsen

Flute Octet (piccolo, 4 C-flutes, 2 alto flutes, bass flute)

Composer's Note:

In his great poem "The Lotos Eaters," in the section called "Choric Song," Tennyson beautifully conveys the languor and dreamy lassitude that overcomes Odysseus's mariners after they partake of the fabled fruit, and evokes the "sweet music" they imagine hearing that "gentlier on the spirit lies than tired eyelids upon tired eyes." In the landscape that surrounds them are "cool mosses deep," words that provided the title for a composition that attempts to enter into the spirit of the poem.

The piece explores the subtle changes of tone color created by oscillations on the same pitch between harmonic and normal fingerings, or between different instruments, such as, for example, when the fifth partial on bass flute immediately follows the same note played as third partial on the C flute. Chords may be voiced in unexpected ways, with piccolo and bass flute notes tucked into the middle of the texture rather being kept at the high and low extremes. This is a music of shifting pairings, with most lines doubled in perfect fifths or major sixths, sometimes piled up into lush eight-note chords, exploiting the flute choir's potential to shape and punctuate phrases with its collective breath.