Diana McIntosh
Luminairies, 1978
Commissioned by: Aurora Musicale with a grant from the Manitoba Arts Council
Premiered by: Aurora Musicale, Winnipeg, May 14, 1979
“McIntosh has called upon a full range of avant-garde flute techniques… placed into a sensible, impressionistic musical context, creating an individual, but genuinely poetic atmosphere.” Peter G. Davis, The New York Times, December 1979
“Fascinated by the aurora borealis (northern lights often seen on Manitoba winter nights), I decided to write a three-movement work inspired by three different manifestations of light. ‘Dawn’ has lines which move outward, becoming warmer and more brilliant like the sunrise. The impressionistic second movement, ‘Corona’, is a quiet interlude with a sense of suspension in space. The long lyrical flute lines have little variation in dynamic level like flat white light. By playing ‘into’ the piano, the performer produces distant echoes. ‘Northern Lights’, the third movement, expresses the eerie, shimmering, luminous atmosphere of the aurora borealis which is often referred to as the ‘merry dancers’. Unusual flute sounds and subtle pedal effects on the piano dominate the whole work.”