Land, commissioned in 2021 for Camerata Pacifica by Joan Davidson in memory of her husband John Schnittker (1924-2020), is a six-movement work for french horn, cello and piano. Mr. Schnittker is remembered publicly for his work as Under Secretary of Agriculture for President Lyndon B. Johnson and later an influential Washington farm policy consultant, and privately as strong, generous, humor-filled loving and family-centered.

I composed the music with the idea of creating a portrait of a larger cultural arc - a certain time, sense of place and vision of community - to which John Schnittker belonged and in which his life’s work flourished.

To create the sense of a “certain time”, I worked with diatonic musical language, white key if you will, to suggest an abstract association with a 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s popular musical environment. The sound of white-key clusters and chords as well as runs and interlocking textures - exude an energy of no-nonsense optimism. To create a sense of place, I drew upon ideas of horizon lines and infused them suggestions of lyrical lines and melodies for the horn and cello, letting them flow into and out of each other to suggest the subtle, ever changing sky-line of a horizon.

Each of the six movements takes its title from the poetry of Hayden Carruth, Vermont Poet/Farmer and a contemporary of John Schnittker. In Carruth’s poetry I found is a communion of spirit between these two men who lived at the same time, in the same country and, as boys, farmed the land.

I hope that each movement’s title, wedded with its music, captures your unique ear and imagination as you take the music in as your own.

1. … invisible stars singing (from The Sound)

2. …beyond plenitude (from The Joy and Agony of Improvisation)

3. …the ravine (from The Ravine)

4. …beautiful faces in the dark (from The Cows at Night)

5. …we came to a solemn season (from November, Indian Summer)

6. …standing on the wagon tongue (from Emergency Haying)

Libby Larsen, 2023