Alpine Lakes

Commissioned by Kerry Turner and the American Horn Quartet, Alpine Lakes is a tone-poem in miniature. The work is programmatic, reflecting the composer’s impressions of Switzerland and New Zealand. Although the music is continuous, there are four major sections in contrasting moods: Lake Brienz, Switzerland (Autumn), Lake Wakatipu, New Zealand’s Southern Alps (Winter), Lac Leman, Switzerland (Spring), L’Etang aux Grenouilles (Frogpond), Switzerland (Summer) . Structurally, the music is based on a «magic» four-pitch set: C, C#, E, F#, plus transpositions and inversions. This set contains all possible chromatic intervals. Stanley Friedman