Throughout the 1990s, personal computers, the Internet, and the World Wide Web became widespread and now life without them seems unimaginable. Though Weinzweig himself never owned a computer, he still witnessed its impact. In Netscapes, he reflects on an evolving exposure to music over the Internet. He explains in the score: “I imagined browsing on the internet and discovering a wide variety of music fragments, each with its own sonic profile of sufficient thematic interest requiring no further elaboration.”
Netscapes is composed of six sections, including two Interludes and one Postlude. The first, third, and fifth sections each contain six contrasting ideas; each idea is repeated three times, with the exception of one idea in the fifth section that is repeated twice. This type of exact repetition is rare in Weinzweig’s music, as he typically incorporates motivic transformation. Both Interludes are slow and free, and open with the same blues-infused four measures. The Postlude is the longest section of the work; it summarizes many aspects of the work, including metre changes to 5/4 near the end, repetition of short motives, blues inflections (major and minor thirds), and the falling gestures from the work’s opening idea.
Written by Alexa Woloshyn
Netscapes (2000)
Solo Piano
Duration:
First Performance: 9 March 2013, Toronto; Weinzweig Centenary Symposium, University of Toronto; Elaine Keillor