THE STORY BEHIND: Cindy McTee's "Tempus Fugit"

Title: Tempus Fugit

Composer: Cindy McTee (1953- )
Last time performed by the Rhode Island Philharmonic: This is a RI Philharmonic Orchestra premiere. This piece is scored for piccolo, two flutes, three oboes, two clarinets, E-flat clarinet, three bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion and strings.

The Story: Tempus Fugit is the second of two movements from Cindy McTee’s Double Play, a work commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in honor of Elaine Lebenbom, a fellow musician, composer, and anti-discrimination activist from the Detroit area. In her own words, McTee says of the work: 

Tempus Fugit, Latin for “time-flees” but more commonly translated as “time flies,” is frequently used as an inscription on clocks. My Tempus Fugit begins with the sounds of several pendulum clocks ticking at different speeds and takes flight about two minutes later using a rhythm borrowed from Leonard Slatkin’s Fin for orchestra. Jazz rhythms and harmonies, quickly-moving repetitive melodic ideas, and fragmented form echo the multifaceted and hurried aspects of 21st-century American society.

Program Notes by Jamie Allen © 2024 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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