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Main Article (cont.)

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The movement is marked “Presto possibile” (Bolcom, Lilith 10) and is to be played without a discernible pulse, despite the 32nd-note beamings that are given to facilitate performance. The entire movement has a running 32nd-note line, with only a few slight pauses. The result is a feeling of perpetual motion, which coincides well with the idea of a flickering light that dances in the air, just out of reach. This movement, like the fourth, has no time signature, and is in fact without measures and barlines entirely. Both the saxophone and the piano are indicated to play very quietly, and only occasionally rise out of the texture with an accent or energetic ascending figuration that is accompanied by a swell or crescendo. The first four systems scarcely have the two instruments playing at the same time, instead handing off a single line back and forth to each other. After the texture is firmly established, the saxophone begins to branch out over the piano 32nd-notes and plays familiar melodic gestures from the first and second movements that specifically relate the movement to Lilith. The melody marked “freely” on the second system of page twelve is constructed from first movement material seen in measure 12 and the third system. The saxophone returns briefly to the running line and departs again through the first system of the thirteenth page, interjecting familiar multiphonics and flutter-tongue gestures from the first and second movements, all depicting Lilith’s “wild” character (Bolcom, E-mail interview).

The fifth movement, like the first, sums up a lot of the imagery exposed in the entire piece, but with almost entirely new musical material. True to its title, the rhythmic profile of the piece is very dance-like, facilitated by a triple compound meter with a triplet subdivision (27/16 or 9/dotted eighth). The beginning of the movement reminds the listener of Lilith as a temptress with a beautiful and non-combative texture. The saxophone and the piano play in parallel motion a melody marked “seductive” (Bolcom Lilith, 16), each phrase of which ends in a sustained chord that has an underlying “dry” and ominous rhythmic gesture in the low register of the piano. After its conclusion in measure 7, a variation of the melody begins with the piano chords re-voiced in a manner reminiscent of the second movement’s opening: both serene and foreboding. In measure 19, the saxophone begins a contrasting theme derived from the rhythmic low-register piano gesture, marked “scherzando.” The character of the line is very playful, in conjunction with the marking, and also has an air of disdain and mockery that one could associate with Lilith as a contemptuous child-stealer.

At measure 24, the fifth movement transitions into a dance, through a rhythmic ostinato in the left hand that effectively invokes the image of Lilith running through the woods as Bolcom described. The texture is less dense and more focused, similar to that of the third movement, the majority of the time in three contrapuntal lines that contrast with the thick vertical harmonies of the movement’s opening. In measures 32 and 33 the saxophone has two chromatic grace-note gestures leading into syncopated accents that have the raunchy character of jazz “bends.” Measure 36 follows with contrasting “wild” sforzandos, crescendi, and guttural sounds in the saxophone over a running sixteenth-note line in the extreme high register of the piano. These produce the sensation of being taunted, as an animal-like Lilith might dare her would-be pursuers through the woods.

The dance returns in measure 47 with a similar confident character, punctuated by what Bolcom calls “grotesque” multiphonics in measures 55 and 56. The dance winds down into measure 60 and concludes with a cadenza arpeggiation in the saxophone resembling the opening cadenza of the first movement, a bold gesture with all the confidence of a thriving female demon. In measure 61 the seductive parallel-motion texture returns, this time with the melody in the saxophone’s highest register, marked “sweet, unearthly,” and the running sixteenths in piano’s highest register. What follows is an echo of the dance, the piano marked pianissimo for its melody and rhythmic bass accompaniment, while the saxophone returns to its dramatic dynamic gestures and trills, rising in measure 82 into its high register once more, and ending the movement with a loud, “throaty” growl. The piece ends with a concise exposition of Lilith’s most basic characteristics: her divine origins and enchanting beauty, and her wild and ferocious nature.

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