Bug Snatches Spider
for flute (piccolo), clarinet (bass clarinet), horn, percussion, piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass
(-) First performance: 1997, The Aspen Music Festival, Aspen/Colorado; The Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, dir.: George Tsontakis
(-) First broadcast: 1999, CCTV (public access cable), Cambridge/Massachusetts; recording of the premiere performance
(-) East coast premiere: 1999, Harvard University, Cambridge/Massachusetts; The Fromm Players at Harvard, dir.: Morris Rosenzweig
Program notes
Bug Snatches Spider consists of three movements. The first movement, Version I, features long linear developments and densely contrapuntal textures that thin out more and more towards the end of the movement. It ends with the singular sound of a high violin cut off by a pop. The second movement, Version II, surges through sections that are shorter and less intricate than those of the first movement, towards five fortissimo beats. Some of these sections have aleatoric structures, others are built as instrumental choirs. The last movement, Aggregate, is for a lone piano. It is nothing but a single long sequence serenely descending to the lower end of the keyboard. The material of this movement contains the essence of the material used to compose the previous two movements.
(Stefan Hakenberg, 1998)
Reviews & press
"Stefan Hakenberg's "Bug Snatches Spider" crosses many stylistic boundaries, from aleatory to germinal repetition, and reaches out () to nontraditional instruments like rocks and paper bags."
(Boston Globe)