Spaghetti

Spaghetti, for oboe, bassoon, viola, bass, and harp, was conceived as an “anti-Pierrot piece”; that is, a quintet mirroring the traditional Pierrot ensemble (flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano), but featuring players who don’t typically appear in as much chamber repertoire. The title is represented in the music in two ways. First, the counterpoint in the piece mimics the cooking of a batch of dried spaghetti: at the beginning, the lines are rigid and parallel (often doubled at the octave), and over time they become gradually more wobbly and more independent (culminating in a frenzied passage in which the instruments play separate motives, each in a different tempo). Secondly, the melodic material in Spaghetti consists mainly of “noodling” lines, which may lack traditional melodic shape or goals, but instead use unpredictable chromatic motion to fill bands of registral space. Spaghetti was written in 2017, and premiered in 2018 in Bloomington, Indiana by oboist Jake Gunnar Walsh, bassoonist Kahayla Rapolla, violist Samantha Lee, bassist Bryan Bailey, and harpist Alyson Kanne.

Recording: Jake Gunnar Walsh, oboe; Kahayla Rapolla, bassoon; Samantha Lee, viola; Bryan Bailey, double bass; Alyson Kanne, harp; John Bowman, recording engineer (Bloomington, Indiana, 2018). Copyright ℗ 2018 by Corey K. Rubin. All rights reserved.