The Music of Stuart Jones

Two Intermezzi

Both of the Intermezzi were written as pièces d’occasion in the midst of writing more substantial works. The first, written in 1990 with a number of revisions over the years, celebrated the seventieth birthday of the fine composer and teacher John Lessard. The second, conceived and written in March of 1997, served as a hiatus from my work on a much larger piece for six instruments.

Both pieces follow ternary form (ABA’) with an emphasis on transforming the returning material after the contrasting section. The first Intermezzo employs an intervallic transformation in the return section (roughly, semi-tone intervals are expanded into whole-tones); thus, the same musical gestures return but in a new harmonic framework. In the second Intermezzo, the transformation is a compression of time so that the events heard in the opening section now appear at a faster pace in the returning section. In both Intermezzi, the contrasting middle section offers more lyrical and drawn out music that counteracts the density of the opening (and closing) section.

Performances

• Evan Hirsch, Lumen Contemporary Music Ensemble, Arlington, MA Apr 13, 1997
• Christina Dahl, Miller Theatre, New York, NY Feb 15, 1998

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