Pittoresken

"The first time I encountered the word 'Pittoresken' was when I came across the piece '5 Pittoresken' written by the Austro-Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff. I found the title of the piece to be one of the many interesting things about it, and with my haphazard German I researched this untranslatable word (unfortunately "picturesques" does not exist in English) and tried to understand the subtleties of it. When I thought that I had satiated my curiosity for this word, I put that information in the back of my mind and did not consider it for a while. Upon initial conversations about a commission from the Pacific Symphony to write a string trio, suddenly this word floated back to my mind. I was not only inspired by the poetry of this word, but I was inspired by the concept of 'microcosms' - where little images or pieces of scenery seemed to encapsulate the infinity of the universe. In effect, the 3 'pittoresken' presented here are meditations on an image - sometimes the image moves itself, and sometimes the mind moves in reaction to the image. The three images are all contrasting, but attempt to capture a very specific mental color and utilize every subtle and barely evolving shade of that color."