Grossman Ensemble premieres Paula Matthusen's "Hold"
Performance notes:
Paula Matthusen's piece Hold (or, the gift of patterns) premiered with the Grossman Ensemble on March 13, 2020.
Hold (or, the gift of patterns) draws its inspiration from thinking about small sounds ranging from the discrete ring of a plucked string to the gentle noise of crumpled paper. Specifically, I’m interested in the repetition of such sounds, their variance, and how, depending on context, they may offer surprise or, at times, comfort. The piece unfurls in five short movements articulated by contrasting material and spatial pairings of instruments (especially percussion, piano, and harp):
I. Let us begin
II. at a moment
III. in which, tumbling toward its consequent
IV. a span half-spent
V. springs to conclusion.
Many thanks to Roger Mathew Grant for the original prose titling these movements.