Listening Journal No. 4a

Ran’s Excursions

Shulamit Ran (b. 1949) is an Israeli-American composer, who currently holds the position of Andrew MacLeish Distinguished Service Professor of Music at the University of Chicago. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1991 and studied composition at the Mannes College of Music in New York, where she taught by noted composers Nadia Reisenberg and Norman Dello Joio.
Ran’s Excursions is a three movement work scored for piano trio (piano, violin and violoncello). The movements lack formal titles and are, rather, characterized with descriptions of their desired temperament. The movements are to be played “Broad and Extremely Passionate,” “Very Lyrical, Gentle,” and “With Breadth and Passion.”
The first oddity of the piece is its lop-sidedness. The first two movements, combined, are about two minutes shy in duration than the whole of the third movement. But this lop-sidedness is not uncommon (especially in twentieth-century music). In Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, the first and fifth movements are each about twice the length of the other three movements. Cage’s String Quartet in Four Parts, Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1, and others throughout the history of Western art music have a similar disproportion in the lengths of their movements. There could be an explanation of the duration of the third movement. There is an extensive violin cadenza (starting around 6’15” and lasting until 8’15”).
Ran uses a distinct, descending line that rhythmically accelerates forward in the violoncello as the opening material for both the first and the third movements. The line has a mathematical approach to its construction, taking on the shape of a parabolic curve expressed through music. But Ran’s approach to this melodic figure is different at each occurrence. At the opening of the first movement, the violoncello plays this line unaccompanied (with the exception of a few isolated chords in the piano). This idea then returns towards the end of the first movement, but contained in the piano with a soft sustained accompaniment in the strings. The opening third movement is similar to the first in that the violoncello once again plays the original melodic material. This time though, the piano is given a much more prominent role and the violin picks up on the material much sooner than it did in the first movement. The final obvious occurrence of this motive appears in the violoncello towards the end of the third movement, right after the violin cadenza. The violin and piano have such an imperative part during this repetition that the violoncello is unable to complete the motive before being over-powered by the other two instruments. Each time this motive is played, it remains in its original form, without transposition.
Much of Ran’s material for the outer movements comes from the opening motive. This is most clearly displayed in the opening few seconds of the third movement. Once the violoncello has landed on the lowest pitch of the line, the violin plays a similar passage in inversion. This inverted line is also presented in diminution. Ran’s facility to integrate her initial idea into so many facets of the work not only shows her understanding of her motives and motivic development, it allows for a greater continuity within the piece. These connections might not be initially made by the listener, but on some subconscious level an association is made that affirms that the piece is an unified whole.
While there are all of these repeated ideas within the piece, Ran’s abilities and creativity keep the recurrences sounding fresh and exciting. One additional reason for this freshness is attributed to her orchestration. The piece has extended solo, duet and full trio passages that utilize all seven possible combinations of the instruments. For example, the extended violin cadenza in the third movement and the prominence of the piano in the second movement are examples of her solo writing. Her orchestrational techniques are shown in the hand-offs of material from one instrument to another. They are seamless and allow for slight color shadings that give each new occurrence of Ran’s motifs a new and fresh quality.
Excursions is an great example of unifying a multi-movement piece for a standard ensemble. The piano trio repertoire is vast and much of this music is firmly set within the Canon. This ensemble and others, like the string quartet and the violin-piano duo, are often difficult groups for modern composers to write for and still make a memorable impression upon the listener, due to the substantial number of works already in existence. But Ran took on this difficulty and effectively succeeded. Despite all of the positives about this work, its hard to determine its place within (or outside of ) the Canon. This is due, primarily, to the fact that this piece is still new, and enough time has not passed since its conception and the present-day. Works in the Canon need to have a chance to age, and be assimilated into the musical world. Although an exceptional piece, in many regards, Ran’s Excursions is just too new, and is written for a musically-saturated ensemble. More time must pass before a truly accurate assessment of its Canonic place can be determined.