Composing Spotlight: Labyrinth

Movement VIII. Determination Redux

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

The eighth movement of this piece started on page 59 of the score, and having composed it from start to finish in order, I was sick of it. By now, it had been six months since the beginning, and I was back in Virginia for a 2002 winter break that was just slightly colder than a Tallahassee winter break.

The benefit of composing in order was that, by now, I knew exactly where the piece needed to go and what I wanted to say in the remaining measures. The poking and meandering of my composing process closely mirrored the exploratory approach of the protagonist in the labyrinth, which sounds more meta than it actually is, and will be useful when my music is adapted into a David Lynch movie.

For the first time, a key center is reused, as the material from movement II is restated. I intended this movement to feel like a lock-and-key, with all of the countermelodies working together to focus the melody. In Movement II and much of the early material, the melody was under constant pressure to winnow away to distraction. Here, each use of a countermelody pushes towards an inexorable conclusion of cacophony. The end of this movement becomes a blur of sound, with an acceptable range of phasing allowed between the poor musicians vamping on short, tight motives, and represents the completion of the labyrinth.

Listen to the eighth movement (1:25 MP3)

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