Album Notes

Music Box (“River Silver”) evokes the vast beauty of the Milky Way galaxy and the tears formed by two mythic lovers separated at either side of its heavenly banks, according to Vietnamese folklore as described by Gary Ferguson in The World’s Great Nature Myths.

Vitruvian Man -- Using A440 as my home pitch, I multiplied 440 by the ratios found in VITRUVIAN MAN, (i.e. 1/10th, 1/8th, 1/3rd etc.), translated the resulting frequency into the closest approximate note on the piano, and discovered a VITRUVIAN CHORD TM made up of D, F, A, C#, E, or a d minor 9th chord with a raised 7th. This chord provided a mysterious sonority that became the basis for the chord progression of the composition.
For more information on the math I used, please visit our YouTube site (search “Mark Petering Vitruvian Man Explanation”)

Prelude to Kakadu Rain is inspired by a trip to Australia’s Northern Territory where I became very taken with the vast floodplains and the wildlife that depend on nourishing rain after the dry season ends.

String Quartet No. 1 with Optional Tape / Symphony No. 2 for Strings ("Travelogue") -- The outer movements suggest modes of transportation and the vastness of the United States. The middle movement evokes the lyrical quality of African-American spirituals of the deep south. Lyricism and repetition are binding elements of the three pieces.

Three Pieces for Mixed Trio explores energy in various spaces both small (Thicket) and big (Coastline) and the newly conceived string theory of theoretical physics that binds it all together.

Concerto for Clarinet and Strings / Clarinet Quintet (“Three Psalms”) -- Psalm Prelude was originally conceived while I was teaching at the Milwaukee Jewish Day School. Learning Hebrew folk melodies in preparation for my duties as music teacher led my ear to embrace such soulful music. Quilters’ Psalm evokes another folk tradition, the singing of African-American quilters from Gee’s Bend, AL. (I was deeply moved by the quilt exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum). The last movement …like rain on the fields… celebrates the renewal of spirit through nature’s gift of nourishing rain and is inspired by Psalm 72. This final movement was commissioned by House of Hope Lutheran Church of New Hope, MN.