Price: Placid Lake

Description

Florence Beatrice Price's love of nature manifested itself in many aspects of her music — not least among them her several musical reflections on water, lakes in particular. These pieces of "water music" include the early masterpiece On a Quiet Lake , its later counterpart "Lake Mirror" in the still-unpublished set Snapshots and the incomplete "Mountain Stream," and the late contemplation Placid Lake , presented here. All these compositions are tranquil in character, but Placid Lake is most obvious and effective in its musical gestures that evoke Price's African American heritage. in the A sections (mm. 1-18 and 26-36) this influence is most obvious in the D to D-flat cadential moves at mm. 6-7 and 33-34, as well as in the prominent added sixth (C) on the tonic harmony at mm. 9 and 36. But the mild dissonance between that C and the dominant (B-flat) actually pervades the work — becoming most prominent in the interplay between the alto and tenor lines in mm. 37-41 of the coda. Although the central B section remains in the tonic in E-flat Major (with added C), that section's delicate exchanges of arpeggios among the registers enliven Placid Lake 's rhythmic language. The jazz-influenced stream of parallel chord in m. 17 keeps the work's tonal stability from becoming monotonous, and the abrupt D-flat – A-flat – E-flat – G – C-flat sonority that interrupts the steady pulse in mm. 42-43 beautifully provides direction to conclude a work whose central image — that of a placid lake — is about quietness and stasis.

— John Michael Cooper