Your Recorder Community

Like a game of 4-way badminton, this fun piece engages everyone equally. Each player only gets certain notes in the larger melody, like in a handbell choir, which requires constant vigilance and an understanding of both the details of each part and the greater whole received by the audience.

– Glen Shannon, Editor

Composer's note: Primodal Episodes, a suite in four movements for recorder ensemble, was composed when I was a student at the University of Manitoba School of Music. I invented the word "Primodal" to reflect the fact that the musical time was structured with prime numbers and that the pitch elements featured the seven different modes traditionally associated with medieval music. Throughout the work, the melody is often harmonized in parallel perfect 4th or perfect 5th intervals, a style similar to the organum practiced during the Middle Ages. "Danse" is the suite's finale and exhibits the medieval device of hocket-- the melody is shared between the different voices so that when one voice sounds, the others rest. It is like a little musical game where a continuous tune is generated by discontinuous parts.

- John Winiarz