On Imminent Rays

One day in the summer of 1989 while I was vacationing at the Gulf of Mexico with my family I encountered a large manta ray at very close quarters. The image of the huge animal gliding irresistibly through its element stayed with me for some time (the more so since I had touched it, or rather it had touched me). Before long I began to imaging writing a piece of music with the irresistible yet graceful movement of the ray, beautiful yet vaguely threatening and, in its deliberate movements "imminent". I invented the title for the piece at that point but still, as yet, had only a general idea of the music.

Before long a new association for the title began to form. Imminent Rays suggested to me tine imminent dying of the sun billions of years in the future as it gradually engulfs the interior planets of the solar system, slowly extinguishing life on Earth. It was an image of sadness and finality. I decided that the music should incorporate both image as one, graceful flow which eventually ceases and a prevailing sense of loss.

On Imminent Rays exists within its own microcosm of sound. The materials used to create the work are few, as are the techniques used to perform it. The pitch material for the entire piece is taken from various transformations of one five-note sonority containing relatively simple harmonic relationships among its notes. This was in keeping with the simplicity and directness of the other elements of the music. All of the piano and cello techniques are "conventional", all of the many cello harmonics are natural, and changes of tempo and register are carefully controlled. On Imminent Rays was commissioned for cellist Stuart Hake with a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

PB