Program note for Imbrications

Imbrications was composed in 2001 in honor of Andrew Imbrie’s 80th birthday. It is scored for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion, and piano and lasts about three minutes. Friends of Andrew knew that he was impatient with music that is slow, bombastic, and bereft of counterpoint. Therefore my little piece is fast, quiet, and polyphonic. An imbrication is the repetition of a regular pattern so that the edges overlap, as in the tiles of a roof. The idea for the piece is that all the material imbricates. Most of the material itself derives from the “Happy Birthday” tune; “Auld Lang Syne” appears in the middle section.

Fred Lerdahl