Flute Trio for the Month of Planting

Music for the Months: A Collection of Flute Trios

Compelled by the force of dreams, Martin has created a series of twelve flute trios, each a single movement of four to five minutes in length. These trios correlate roughly to a calendar year, although the composer has assigned them titles from a "personal myth." They can, of course, be played in any order or grouping. The twelve trios were completed during a trip to northwestern Michigan in the Summer of 2014.

Music for the Months and the Days is a collection of Trios and Quartets, all for standard flutes (no altos or piccolos). Each is a single movement lasting from 4 to 5 ½ minutes. Presented as a collection here, each of these pieces is meant to stand alone, in performance and publication. These scores are not transposed.

Always I try to write the music that has been suggested to me in dreams. In one dream recently, I was sitting in a small, old-fashioned opera house watching the Magic Flute. But during the performance, I got up and walked on stage, and everything went silent. Tamino and Papageno nodded to me in recognition, but I bid them farewell. As we all know, they were going south to the Temple of Zoroaster. I was striking out in the opposite direction. As I left through a backstage door, I heard the muffled music pick up and continue. I walked through the night air until the light of dawn when I came to a village that was having a flute festival. They asked me to compose flute quartets and trios, which they believed to be the highest form of art. Of course, in my dream, the close of the festival came quickly, and I could produce nothing in time as I awoke.

In the summer of 2014, we traveled to Michigan, north of Grand Rapids, to a little town called Luther. As I hiked the trails, I began to imagine that this forested area was the place I had walked to in my dream. While there, I completed twelve trios for standard flutes. At the end of August, we returned to Manhattan, but I had so much fun composing, that I turned and drove for a long day without knowing where I was heading. I arrived at Sistersville, West Virginia, along the Ohio River, and there I completed seven quartets for standard flutes. The creation of these pieces is what my dream had suggested that I do.

Each piece represents music for a month in the year or a day of the week; however, these particular names are just a matter of personal myth. Any piece may be played at any time.