Lucia Dlugoszewski: Space is a Diamond (for solo trumpet)

For solo trumpet. 11 minutes, 1970.

Composer note
Sense of hugeness, transparency, delicacy of brilliance, speed and frequency of sudden daring leaps into disparate dynamics and the passionate capacity for expression of a solo instrument with essentially linear possibilities: meditations along these lines created the music of Space is a Diamond.

As a result of the structural challenges implicit in working with large dimensions, many new ways of playing the trumpet were invented, such as unlimited half-valve glissandos and the feathery, tender ‘flap-whisper’ trilling techniques. Actually, the trumpet sound is washed in a constant iridescence of subtle timbral distinctions. A choreographic unfolding of mute changes with seven different mutes continues throughout.

Space is a Diamond involves various ‘calligraphies’ of speed that often brush only the outermost reaches of registers, leaving an unsounded emptiness in between, or spiraling parabolas of melodic variation in calligraphic flights. Finally, like the taut mystery of a straight line, the formal organization distills itself into the sharp transparency of a long set of variations on a single note. The music, then, assumes an entirely different dimension. The line flowers into a variety of oscillations, including quarter-tone trills, until it reaches a new concentration of tautness and finally severs itself to that a fragile hanging bridge spans the silence of the ear.

— Lucia Dlugoszewski