Description
Heartdance
Andrew Bergeron
for flute and guitar
Heartdance is the last movement of a set of pieces about the dragonfly’s life cycle. It uses a Basque dance in 5 called the Zortziko that Bergeron studied in the music of Isaac Albéniz. Musically it has a bittersweet tonality created from a major scale with flatted scale degrees 6 and 7. This mode 5 of melodic minor mimics the joy of the dragonfly’s mating pose combined with the knowledge that its life will soon come to an end. Heartdance is a melodic showcase for both instruments featuring melody in duet, extended arpeggios, and scale passages in contrary motion. Near the end, the guitar reaches new levels of resonance as the flute revisits musical quotes from the earlier movements (the “dream” sequences”) before the dragonfly lands one last time.
