Mountain Roads

Description

David Maslanka’s Mountain Roads is set in six movements and follows the model of a Baroque cantata. The piece revolves around two chorale melodies by J.S. Bach, “Alle Menschen mussen sterben” (“All people must die”) and “Wo soll ich fliehen?” (“Where shall I run to?”), which appear in full and as variations as the piece progresses. The title “Mountain Roads” was inspired by a dream the composer had in which he helped to pave new roads; upon waking, he felt as though the dream acted as a metaphor for new life. In setting a chorale that explicitly discusses death to music that Maslanka describes as “exuberant and uplifting,” he acknowledges the paradox of death’s inevitability and the way in which the knowledge makes all things both deeply sweet and deeply sad, while also suggesting movement towards, in his words, “whatever exists beyond.”

Mountain Roads is oriented, harmonically and melodically, around the note “D,” not in the traditional sense of a D major/minor tonality, but with “D” as a note of polarization around which the music revolves. The commissioning quartet sought the composer’s permission (which he granted) to produce a version transposed a semitone lower, in which “Db” becomes the note of polarization; a version of the piece in this transposition is also available (WE43).