In his recently released album Nambé, Dutch composer Peter Lieuwen looks at the world around him and uses the sights and sounds of nature for inspiration. His music brings in elements of jazz, rock, and world music.

Peter Lieuwen

A commission by clarinettist Wonkak Kim and pianist Eunhye Grace Choi, Bright River follows a river downstream. The world it passes through affects the sound and actions of the water over waterfalls, down agitated rapids, or into tranquil pools. Unlike Bedřich Smetana’s The Moldau, which reflects all that’s happening on its banks as it travels to the sea, Lieuwen’s Bright River is occupied solely by itself and what happens between the banks.

A River

One compositional element the composer uses is a diminished scale that alternates half-step and whole-step intervals. He juxtaposes this scale with sections that are pandiatonic, i.e., using every step of a diatonic scale without preference for a key.

The concept was invented by the musicologist and composer Nicolas Slonimsky to define music written in a kind of ‘democratic equality’.

Dunloup Falls near the historic town of Thurmond, West Virginia (photo by Andy Hammes)

The rise and fall of the river’s action serve as a constant flow of change. The composer cites the Greek philosopher Heraclitus in saying, ‘You cannot step twice into the same river.’ In the same way, the context in our river is constantly changing. We never know what is around the next bend, and it is the piano that provides our music ‘riverbed’. Above it, the clarinet dances and ‘weaves in and out of the musical fabric’, as the composer says.

Rapids on the river

The river flows on, and the quiet of the occasional whirlpool and quiet corner matches the excitement of falls and drops.

Peter Lieuwen: Bright River (Wonkak Kim, clarinet; Eun-Hye Grace Choi, piano)

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