Time Curves on—and in—the piano with Robert Elfline in concert

“The Time Curve Preludes” is one of the unusual piano pieces HSU Music instructor Robert Elfline will play in concert at Fulkerson Hall, but it turns out to be only one of the ways time curves during this program.

The evening begins with pieces by familiar names—a prelude from The Well-Tempered Clavier by Johann Sebastian Bach, early pieces by Johannes Brahms and a Beethoven sonata.

But after intermission, Elfline does not immediately return to the keyboard. Instead he goes “under the hood,” inside the piano to manipulate strings directly to perform two works by modern American composers.

These “Two Pieces for String Piano” are by American composer Henry Cowell. “He experimented with what’s called ‘extended technique,’” Elfline explained, which can produce very different musical effects. “The Banshee,” the first Elfline will play, “has this really eerie ghostlike quality.” For “Aeolean Harp,” “I silently depress keys on the keyboard but strum the strings on the inside of the piano. It creates a harp-like sound.”

Famed composer Virgil Thompson praised Henry Cowell’s work by noting that “No other composer of our time has produced a body of works so radical and so normal.”

Then back to the keyboard for The Time Curve Preludes by contemporary American composer William Duckworth. “These are neat little pieces based on a Fibonacci sequence,” Elfline said. Math literates as well as fans of The Da Vinci Code will know that in a Fibonacci sequence, each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers. “In these pieces, the structures gradually compress or gradually expand, creating this funny sensation that time is bending.” The Time Curve Preludes is considered the first “post-minimalist” work. They typically combine the minimalist procedures of addition and subtraction with influences from world music.

Then time curves back again as Elfline returns to the keyboard to perform an early twentieth century sonata by Czech composer Leos Janacek. It tells the story of a worker who was killed during a political demonstration supporting a Czech university.

“All of the pieces have a sense of going on a journey,” Elfline said of his concert program. “They all have a narrative quality. The first Brahms piece is from a narrative poem. The Beethoven sonata is thought by many to represent the journey of his recent long illness and then his recovery. There’s even a narrative quality in the shorter journeys in the pieces by Cowell and Duckworth. And then the last piece deals with the ultimate journey we all must take.”

Though the program appears to be chronological, there are some time curves within it. “It starts with Bach in about 1750, then to Brahms in about 1870, but then back to Beethoven in the 1820s. The second half begins in 1905, then 1977, then back to 1905 in a very different style.”

The Robert Elfline concert begins at 8 PM on Saturday March 24 is in Fulkerson Recital Hall on the HSU campus in Arcata. Tickets from the HSU Box Office (826-3928) or at the door are $8 general, $3 students/seniors. This is a Faculty Artist Series concert, with proceeds to help fund scholarships for HSU music students.