Mutability for Horn and Piano

Abstract

The Mutability for Horn and Piano was inspired by the poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Mutability.” All its movements center around the idea of constant change, but they are interrelated. The link between them is an old Greek popular tune that is employed throughout the composition. This tune is transformed in many ways and dispersed among the instruments in all the movements of the work. In the last movement, echoes of the Funeral March of Chopin culminate the mood of the entire composition which is sometimes somber, lyrical or dramatic. Mutability derives from a 1979 String Quartet which was premiered at Carnegie Recital Hall in New York the same year.