T. 54--Intrusive Double Waltz

This is the second quartet I composed for my Music 188 class. This time we were given an unusual instrumentation, which was a bit of a challenge: soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, viola, and vibraphone. Originally, the prompt I chose was to have the top two parts mirror the bottom two parts, such that instead of placing a mirror at the halfway mark of the piece, the mirror is placed between the bass clarinet and the viola parts. That’s what I did for the first few measures, but I didn’t get very far before I ran out of ideas. I stopped where I was and chose another prompt: Make two duets out of the quartet and have each duet play in a different key. 

This new idea helped me to come up with the double-waltz title. I have the bass clarinet and the viola playing or “waltzing” together in the key of C, while the soprano saxophone and the vibraphone play together in the key of A. Thus, an intrusive double waltz because the difference in key tends to clash and intrude between the duets. However, the piece ends on a D major chord, which contains pitches in both keys. The soprano sax melody is inspired by the famous tune from the first movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Unfortunately, I don’t have the class recording for this piece either. But, all in all, this was a fun piece to write.