Creation’s Seeing Order
(A Prelude for Orchestra)
by
Dan Locklair (b. 1949)
Program Note
Creation’s Seeing Order (A Prelude for Orchestra) was composed during autumn 1987 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on commission from the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra (Leo Driehuys, Music Director) and was premiered by that orchestra on 13 April 1988 in Ovens Auditorium in Charlotte, North Carolina. Creation’s Seeing Order is scored for a slightly augmented double-wind orchestra.
Though not in “C Major” or “c minor”, the foundation of the piece is centered on the note “C” (explaining the pun of the title, Creation’s Seeing [C-ing] Order). In one movement, the piece can best be structurally described by dividing it into the six sections that flow naturally one into the other.
In the first section, all four sections of the orchestra (brass, percussion, strings and woodwinds) are featured as they expose, harmonically and melodically, the main musical idea of the piece (C/E♭/B/B♭). The developmental transition of the second section has woodwind, harp, piano, chimes and vibraphone overlapping one another in melodic, contrapuntal statements of the main idea. High-pitched string harmonics provide an ethereal backdrop. In the third, dance-like section, the primary idea (now centered on D♭ and B♭) is melodically developed as it is tossed about between the various solo wind colors. The dance-like spirit intensifies in the fourth section as the upper strings take over the melodic development of the primary melodic material. This section is again centered on “C” and it is in this section that the climax of the piece is reached. In the fifth section (a short developmental transition reflecting the second section), tension-building trills in the strings provide a backdrop to the contrapuntal woodwinds, harp, piano and chimes. In the sixth section, like the first, the individual choirs of sound return (though the musical material is re-distributed) and development continues through the final bar.
Dan Locklair
Winston-Salem, NC
Autumn 1987