Morton Gould

Burchfield Gallery for Orchestra

This suite for Orchestra commemorates and evokes the art of Charles E. Burchfield, whose paintings, mainly on the subject of Nature, have been descibed as 'visual music' - light and shadow, constant motion and dancing rhythms. It is in seven movements:

I - Prologue: A Passacaglia based on Burchfield's 'signature' - the motive CEB. Austere and quiet.
II - Spring: Ballad, outgoing and exuberant.
III - Brookside Music: Interlude - quiet and babbling, mysterious.
IV - Summer: Serenade, hot, humid, shimmering and pulsating.
V - Autumn: Scherzo - rhythmic, propulsive, fading at the end like the sound of rustling leaves.
VI - Winter: Reverie - elegaic, sustained stillness.
VII - The Four Seasons: Fantasy - a musical collage, reflecting Burchfield's paining containing all the elements, with its Gothic-like cathederal effect framing the sounds of storms, chorales and a final repeat of the Passacaglia.