2 clarinets and 2 cellos

In the early 1980s, the engravings and lithographs of Dutch graphic artist Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) came to influence a number of my musical works. And so it was with Glide Reflexions.

Creating symmetry on a flat surface was but one of the many visual effects achieved in Escher’s works. Three fundamental principles of crystallography informed this particular technique: repeated shifting (translation), turning about axes (rotation) and gliding mirror image (reflexion).

In my composition, various recurring shifts in rhythmic and harmonic entities, allusions to rotating actions, and mirror/invertible instrumental figurations all interact in order to suggest the lively as well as haunting other-worldly perspectives in the work of M. C. Escher.

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