Chamber Music Corner—Vivian Fung’s Bounce
by Layne Anspach
This month’s CMC will focus on Vivian Fung’s Bounce for violin, horn, and piano. Vivian Fung (b. 1975) is a Canadian composer now residing in the US. She began her training under the tutelage of Violet Archer then completed her doctoral studies at The Juilliard School. She has written large orchestral works, concertos, operas, and chamber music. Fung’s compositions can be heard on a dozen different albums and in concert halls around the world.
Bounce (2016) was commissioned by the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto and was premiered in Toronto on November 24, 2016. The work is inspired by the composer’s son who, as a newborn, “had the habit of banging his head against his mattress to soothe himself to sleep.” Fung writes of the work that “the idea of a constant drone or thump remains constant, with a deep ostinato that permeates the beginning.”
The opening section, which Fung describes as having a “leisurely ebb and flow of harmonies,” finds repeated notes among all voices, primarily in violin and piano. These figures are largely left up to the individual performer on frequency and severity. The horn grounds the section with sustained notes. The listener can hear harmonics played by violin and piano, but the section ends with a long, descending glissando between horn and violin.
The second section (2:54) starts with four chromatic pitches repeated by the violin but soon joined by sextuplets in the piano. The section grows, and finally the full ensemble arrives together on a single hit then calms immediately after. The players haphazardly gather the musical fragments (4:05) into what Fung describes as “the playfulness of the bouncy scherzo-like middle sections.”
A horn call interjects (5:37); this is the preface to a short, bell-like section introduced in the piano, and this quickly turns to what Fung describes as a “schizophrenic culmination.” The violin interrupts the animation, and multiphonics on horn follow prior to the propulsion to the end of the work. There are three a piacere sections—first and third by violin and second by horn—which separate the four main areas of the work. The work provides technical challenges for each performer, and it will certainly diversify the listening experience on a program.
