Composing Spotlight: Labyrinth

Movement VI. Abeyance

Continuing the walkthrough of my Master's Thesis...

It's all downhill from here. Everything through the fifth movement was the inexorable, but meandering churn up a roller coaster hill, and the remaining movements zip along to a conclusion. The sixth movement is the "SQUIRREL!" movement, where the protagonist who had gotten emo about his chances to solve the labyrinth is temporarily distracted by flighty, stutter-stepping melodic material.

For the first time, the flutes get to do something more interesting than playing minor seconds together. Their melody banters with the soprano sax, and gradually gets more out of control and whirling dervish-ish. Each attempt to reinstate an existing melody winnows away to distraction, until the abeyance is shattered by the reappearance of the adversary's theme. This snaps the protagonist back in to focus for the final three movements.

Listen to the sixth movement (2:18 MP3)

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