Woolgathering | quartet for violin and guitar trio by Frank A. Wallace
by Frank A. Wallace
for guitar trio; PARTS INCLUDED
SUGGESTED DONATION: $12
Originally written as a song in January of 2007, Woolgathering was arranged for three guitars and violin in February of 2018 for a concert at the Sumartonar Festival in the Faroe Islands in July of 2018.
Alternate Version: voice and three guitars – not published
Instrumentation: violin, guitar I, guitar II, guitar III
Duration: 5 minutes; 10 pages
Difficulty level: Moderate; mostly single notes and arpeggios for guitars, complex rhythms
Written: arranged from original song February, 2018
World premiere: July 2018, Sumartonar Festival in the Faroe Islands
Recording:
All Gyre compositions are ASCAP
Copyright ©2018 Frank A. Wallace
Cover photography and design by Nancy Knowles
All rights reserved.
Tweet
Bo Isholm, Chris Ladd, Ragnar Olsen, Angelika Nielsen
Word origin & history of ‘woolgathering’
woolgathering 1553, “indulging in wandering fancies and purposeless thinking,” from the lit. meaning “gathering fragments of wool torn from sheep by bushes, etc.”
indulgence in aimless thought or dreamy imagining; absentmindedness.
“he wanted to be free to indulge his woolgathering”
Evolution of a song
I wrote Woolgathering, originally a song, in early 2007 for a retrospective concert of my compositions presented by the Boston Classical Guitar Society. However, the poet, Deborah Dill, was not free to allow publication of the words. Therefore the piece sat for a decade until I was engaged to go to the Faroe islands for a second time. In 2011, my wife and musical partner Nancy Knowles and I attended and performed for the Sumartonar Festival, directed by composer and performer Kristian Blak. Our co-sponsor was the Conservatory of Music in Torshavn, directed by Bo Isholm.
Woolgathering in the Faroes
On one day, we traveled north to explore and ended up by the edge of the sea. These are small islands, so one is never far from salt water. Nor is one ever far from sheep and grassy hillsides. What separates them are sharp, high cliffs that surround many of the 18 islands, sometimes with sheep fencing, sometimes not. That day was a very steep climb along the fence and a drop growing from 100 feet to many more, rapidly. The fence was always covered with sheep’s wool and often there was clear evidence that the sheep had been on the other side of the fence!
I did not make the connection between that idle afternoon and my song until I was engaged to return to the Faroes last fall. Faroese, guitarist, lutenist, teacher and friend, Bo Isholm and I developed a program that included several of my works and two of Faroese composer Kristian Blak. All use violin and up to three guitars. I thought of my song with three guitars and how appropriate the meaning is for this special part of the world. And so my arrangement of the vocal line for violin was born.
Copyright ©2018 Frank A. Wallace
Cover photography and design by Nancy Knowles
All rights reserved.