The Isle of Bathos - World Premiere - David Alan Earnest

The Langroise Trio performs my Isle of Bathos 3-10-07. PROGRAM NOTES: This piece had a rather long gestation period. I started it in 2004, and, due to deadlines of other commissions or pursuit of other interests (painting, golfing, fishing, general laying around, work), I finally finished it on December 28, 2006. This followed on the heals of a fairly busy composing year which included, among other projects, the silent film score The Land Beyond the Sunset for the Boise Philharmonic's Musical Movies project, and Elegies for Two Cellos, commissioned by Idaho Dance Theater. When I started composing The Isle of Bathos I noticed that themes were coming in from everywhere, in many different styles, in an almost cartoon-like hodgepodge of juxtaposition. I went with it because it made me laugh, like a Carl Stallings score (the extraordinary composer for the Warner Bros. cartoons). The working titles were El Extrano Espanol, then The Eccentric, and finally the present title. I came across the word bathos by accident. The definition of the word fit so well with the piece that it stuck. The "Isle" part exists because there are sections that could be said to have originated somewhere in the Caribbean. But also, and much more important, the idea of a pseudo-Greek island, where nothing is quite as it seems, is highly appealing to my bizarre sense of humor. Bathos: an abrupt, often ludicrous change from the lofty to the ordinary or trivial in writing or speech; unintentional anticlimax" - Webster's New World Dictionary For further information visit www.davidalanearnest.com