Beschreibung
YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/qS8Shligu04
When I first heard about a loon being rescued from tangled fishing line in the summer of 2008, I wanted to share the story by writing a musical composition about it. I asked my friend Rachel Oliver to write a poem telling the tale. During the following summers, I notated the loon calls heard at my house on Rangeley Lake in Maine, next to Lake Mooselookmeguntic, (pronounced Moose-look-muh-gun-tic) where the rescue occurred. Most loon calls fall within the range of the human voice and, surprisingly, employ notes commonly used in Western music. In this piece, the actual loon calls are introduced by the flute and the clarinet, and are then modified rhythmically for the singers in order to accommodate the words and rhythm of the poem. Although ornithologists ascribe particular meanings to the various calls, I have chosen them for their melodic and rhythmic qualities rather than for their significance to other loons.