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Rhinestones Pinecones Telephones
1996
flute
marimba
piano [4 hands]
violin
cello
duration 10'
commissioned by The Rivers Music School Seminar on Contemporary Music for the Young
first performance:
Students of The Rivers School
The Rivers School, Weston / April 6, 1997
SCORE
and the sky is full of bluebrains, bluejays, mermaids
bluejays, bluebirds, rainbows
and the sky is full of rhinestones, pinecones, telephones
wolfhowls, milkcows, shadows to somehows
Rhinestones Pinecones Telephones was commissioned by The Rivers Music School for performance by young musicians. The title is from the words to a song by Don Van Vliet, otherwise known as Captain Beefheart, who in the 1970's and 80's produced remarkable music straddling free jazz, Chicago blues, and rock, over which he lays a swathe of chewy lyrics full of internal rhymes and unlikely juxtapositions. Rhinestones, Pinecones, Telephones sounds nothing like Beefheart's music (nothing else does) but it plays off the energy and humor of his words. There are four movement each titled after a word or phrase from his The Clouds Are Full of Wine, Not Whisky Or Rye:
the clouds are full of wine not whisky or rye
and the sky is full of bluebrains, bluejays, mermaids,
bluejays, bluebirds, rainbows
and the sky is full of rhinestones, pinecones, telephones
wolfhowls, milkcows, shadows to somehows,
and the clouds are full of wine not whisky or rye
and the sky is full of bluebrains, baboons, rhinos,
fools and baffoons
and my eyes are full of bloodbones, snowcones,
serenaders and senoritas and so on
melodies that go on, go on, go on,
go off, go off