Saturniid Nocturnes & Reveries - Digital Download

Saturniid Nocturnes & Reveries

Three untitled works that amount to about 10 minutes of playing. Requires a 29x2 string double harp tuned to naturals. Inspired by the North American Saturniidae moths that emerge from their cocoons with expansive, colorful wings, but without the ability to eat, so they die within days. Ms. Rabens has expressed through music this irony of freedom and beauty that is fleeting and tragic.

Each nocturne is to be played freely and with rubato. In the first nocturne, sections that are more rhythmically free alternate with rhythmically steady sections. The steady sections bring to mind the passage of time while the pupae is in the cocoon, while the free sections suggest the promise of awakening to freedom. Time changes from 4/4 to 6/4 and 5/4. The second nocturne celebrates the awakening of a new life as the moth emerges from the cocoon. Time changes between 2/4 and 4/4. The last nocturne is intended to express the fleeting quality of time. Each repeated section emerges from silence only to drift away and be followed by another until all the days have passed and the moth lays crumpled on the ground as we hear the final, delicate, dissonant chord. INTERMEDIATE TO ADVANCED, DOUBLE STRUNG HARP.

"Saturniid Nocturnes & Reveries" is an intermediate level piece composed for the double-strung harp
"Saturniid Nocturnes" for double strung harp is inspired by the North American Saturniidae moths which emerge from their cocoons with expansive, colorful wings, but without the ability to eat, so they die within days. I have attempted to express through music this irony of freedom and beauty that is fleeting and tragic. "Reveries" for double strung harp is a set of three whimsical pieces that explores the harmonic potential of this instrument. It combines a familiar tonal world with fanciful chromatic shifts.