Still Life

STILL LIFE two flutes

Paul Paccione

STILL LIFE (1983/revised 2013) two flutes Paul Paccione Performance note: Notes should be held their full value (molto legato) and breaths should be taken only during rests. The effect should be of one long unbroken line. Neither flute should project a sense of imitation. In order to achieve seamlessness, avoid tapering the ends of phrases. Overlaps produce the desired intensification of pitch and richness of tone.

In Still Life the two flutes combine to spin out one long line, doubling each other at the unison or the octave. These points of linking up, the gradual introduction of new pitches and the placement of pitches in different registers all contribute to the expressive quality of the work. The balance between the constant motion of the line and the overall slow harmonic motion is the essence of the work.

An essay on the meaning of still life painting, by the American art critic Meyer Shapiro, inspired the metaphor for the nature of this work.

“The still life comes to stand for a sober objectivity, and an artist who struggles to attain that posture, after having renounced a habitual impulsiveness of fantasy, can adapt the still life as a calming or redemptive task, a means of self-discipline and concentration. The still life expresses, without action or gesture, the intimate and the personal and engages both the artist and the observer in a steady looking that discloses new and elusive aspects of the stable object.” (from “The Apples of Cezanne,” 1968)

Published by Frog Peak Music, Box 1052, Lebanon, New Hampshire 03766; www.frogpeak.org Cover art by Georgio Morandi