FOLIO: To the Middle and Back

Lon W. Chaffin says, “To the Middle and Back has five movements, each featuring different instruments. The first and fifth movements feature the flute and horn. The second and fourth movements highlight the oboe and bassoon, while the third movement stands alone, giving the clarinet the spotlight. The piece demonstrates a typical arch form… Thus, the title of the piece alludes to the formal structure… The melodic and harmonic vocabulary explore pentatonic and modal scale structures within both quartal/quintal and tertian vertical sonorities. The metrical forms are very traditional in the first two and last two movements, but the third demostrates oscillation between symmetrical and asymmetrical meters as well as an interweaving of the two.”