Figurations

for solo harp

I composed “Figurations” in three distinct stages. It started as a one minute harp etude for an instrumentation class in December of 2022. 8 months later in the summer of 2023, I decided to expand my etude into a full length concert piece. I revisited it a third time in the summer of 2024 to give the highly chromatic harmonies more time to breathe and perhaps to give the harpist more time to change the pedals.

While “Figurations” is not a programmatic work, Octavio Paz’s poem “Como quien oye llover” (“As one listens to the rain”) inspired the overall mood and textures to which I gravitated. The following lines were particularly resonant with me:

“figurations of mist

are just around the corner,

figurations of time

at the turn of this pause,

listen to me as one listens to the rain,”

Octavio Paz, Translated from Spanish by Paul Weinfield, © 2014

The resulting piece is something of a sonata form between “figurations of mist” and “figurations of time.” The “A” theme of mist is the slowly floating line that opens the piece and centers around E♭ major. The “B” theme of time is a sharply descending triplet figure, always with an accented first note. These unique figurations are developed throughout the piece in many tonal centers, inversions, and rhythmic variations, slowy converging until they become one in the same in the piece’s final moments.

• Matthew Thomas Brown