An Arc Ascending, for orchestra

• Date: 1996
• Composer: Gunther Schuller
• Period: Modern (1910-1949)

Review

This ten-minute orchestral movement was inspired by a series of photographs by Alice Weston, a Cincinnati-based artist with interest in the environment. Each photograph shows a sunrise over a Mound Builder structure: One at equinox, one at winter solstice, and the other at summer solstice. In each case they line up over pathways or markers obviously designed by these Native Americans to pin-point the seasons.

The "arc ascending" of the title is the apparent daily path of the sun over a half-year from solstice to solstice. In this evocative and mysterious twelve-tone piece Schuller uses tone-painting as the main means to portray this path. The thematic material of the piece rises in register; the tone-colors "rise" from murky, dark sound to clear, bright ones; and the texture "rises" from the quiet rest of winter to the buzzing activity and growth of high summer. ~ Joseph Stevenson, Rovi

Albums with Complete Performances of the Work

Title	Date
Gunther Schuller Orchestral Works	1998

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