Lock & Key Vol. III

While I had no intentions of writing a longer work, the “Fanfare” had its own thoughts, suggesting to me that it was a celebratory introduction to a modestly proportioned, four-movement work. It haunted me for seven years, recommending an abrupt modulation and introspective, brooding music. Thus emerged the second movement, “Drammatico,” in 2021. In the opening section of this movement, the viola searches questioningly through a quiet, arhythmic accompaniment. The movement then settles down to the rhythmic business at hand with two divergent sections that are alternately juxtaposed three times: dark, angry counterpoint, followed by calm, melodic, meditative homophony.

The third movement, “Fugato” — a little fugue — is marked “with matter-of-fact humor,” and is a whimsical and welcome contrast to the mood swings of the previous movement. The subject of the fugue is colored with accented off-beats. Unusually, it has an echoing pizzicato accompaniment. Subsequent statements of the subject are brought into relief by virtue — a relative term here — of the accompanying instruments, which offer close canons (aka stretto), a playful countersubject, and guitar-like strumming by the viola, marked in the score, “A joyful noise!” The movement winds down with fragments of the subject mirroring each other. But the quiet closing is interrupted by…

Movement IV, designated “Exuberantly.” These colorful, energetic rondo-variations — AABCBAB(A) — feature a bouncy tripartite theme that playfully morphs from one ascending scale to another, only to turn around and come back down again, then conclude with dissonant, insistent leaps. The theme is disassembled lightheartedly, flattened, and run through the contrapuntal mill, if there is such a thing. The descending and leapy motives finally overlap and repeat insistently, concluding the fun.

— Ray Fahrner