28: Two Other Inhabitants

Well, I have spent far more time and words on analysis than I intended but there are two more features that need to be pointed out to complete the picture. [Don’t forget the full score can be downloaded and printed from here.]

Creation of Light (Gustave Dore)

A Melodic Cell
The solo horn’s semitone rise of b5 is added to in b8, the new note is stretched in b9. Finally in b10 the whole figure is stretched with a fourth note added. This four note figure pervades the entire work and is so common I won’t waste time pointing the occurrences out.

The Snap
The first and last interval of that four-note figure is a third. This interval of the third, whether minor or major, rising or falling, gains in importance as Lightfall progresses, most notably in a short-long rhythm. This “snap” first appears quite innocuously as the last two notes of b17 and of b59 after which it occurs more regularly. By b92 it has become the main rhythmic figure of the solo part, mostly as a third but more and more with other intervals. (Of course, the idea of short-long is reflected in the pitches of the octatonic scale itself: STSTSTST)

With the rhythmic aspect of the snap having overwhelmed the pitch aspect, the solo horn reasserts the interval of the third in the grace note figures preceding letter C in Part two. The first two solo notes of the main section (b11-12) is a falling third. A very slow occurrence at b139-142 is taken up from b149 getting faster and faster to b168.

The mighty sound of the three orchestral horns in unison with the solo horn at b269-273 is an extended statement of the grace note figure from before letter C.

The snap figure finally dominates the solo part in the final bars of Lightfall.