SUITE TRAGIQUE (2007) By David Yeagley Suite Tragique is a very large work for American Indian flute. This initial description bespeaks the historical significance attendant in every aspect of the music and the instrument. The Indian flute is essentially a solo instrument. Suite Tragique is for unaccompanied Indian flute. The work is thirty-three pages long, with seven movements. The Indian flute has a range of only a minor tenth—only sixteen different pitches, four of which are simply octave recurrences. The suite comprises the standard baroque dance movements included in the keyboard collections made popular by composers of the period. Suite Tragique for American Indian Flute, in compositional concept and instrumental execution, requires therefore serious explanation. At present, I am the only American Indian composer to write serious classical music for the American Indian flute. The reason is simple: until the early 21st century, no one performed the chromatic scale on the Indian flute. This flute is what western art calls a “folk” instrument. Normally Indian flute players used the simple, five-note pentatonic scale, with perhaps one repeated octave. Of course, there are many non-Indian people who love to play the American Indian flute, and they are prepared to play pentatonic melodies as well. In the late 1990’s, a white man named James Pellerite began to change the history of the American Indian flute. Mr. Pellerite, a famed transverse flute musician was, among other notorieties, first chair of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy. Many works were composed for and dedicated to Mr. Pellerite as a classical transverse flute player. By the early 2000, Pellerite had fulfilled a different purpose: he had established a complete classical technique for the American Indian flute, and essentially brought the instrument into classical circles. No such musical history had occurred since the 18th century, when Joseph Haydn brought the hunting horn into the orchestra—which finally became the French horn. Pellerite made the Indian flute his princess bride, and brought her before the elites of classical Western music. There was only one problem: he wasn’t Indian. Indian people were not interested in him or his flute playing. Nevertheless, Pellerite had made history. Although I alone was the only Indian who would write for him, many other non-Indian composers (European and American) enjoyed the new opportunities Pellerite provided them. They wrote chamber music for him, concerto-type works for him; but, I was first to write a repertoire for the unaccompanied solo American Indian flute. In 2004, we released an album called “Awakenings.” It comprised ten etudes, and a sonata with four movements. It was released on AZIKA. I too wrote orchestral works with Indian flute solo parts, and some of them have also been recorded (on OPUS ONE and ALBANY). Yet, I concentrated on the flute alone. I had reason. I was developing a new system of harmonic organization. I started this venture when I was studying composition with Daniel Asia at the University of Arizona (whence I completed my doctorate in 1994—as a piano/composition major). I had written several chamber works for normal chamber instruments, and all in baroque compositional style, all contrapuntal. The idea was to test my harmonic organization. If it worked in modes as strict as baroque counterpoint, surely, it was a viable system. I was happy to work on solo lines for Pellerite. It gave me opportunity to test my system further. Would it work with such a limited pitch range as found on the American Indian flute? After Awakenings, I was confident that it did. Then I met Timothy Archambault, a Kichesipirini Indian who not only played authentic, historical-style American Indian flute, but who also could play the chromatic scales. This demanded immediate attention. Archambault’s style of performance was quite different from Pellerites. It was totally “folk,” or, authentically Indian. Archambault recorded my “Wessi vah-peh” for Indian flute and orchestra with the Polish National Radio symphony, David Oberg conducting. It was for Opus One, but, it was never released. Max Schubel, the executive, passed away. It was apparent, however, that Archambault was a unique talent, quite diverse from the classical realm, yet completely aware of its refinement. His presence in the flute, however, is a dimension of refinement all his own. In the year 2007, I created for Archambault the Suite Tragique, which may be the most significant work ever to be written for the solo American Indian flute. There are simply no Indian performers yet willing or capable of performing it. Archambault is like a Pelé of the Indian flute. He is in a class of his own. Pellerite never undertook the Suite Tragique, simply because his style requires severe editing, on his part, whereas Archambault tears away at any challenge. Pellerite must have the notes which allow the best execution, without bizarre fingerings or phrasings. Remember that the Indian flute has few notes to offer—yet there are often three to four different fingerings possible for several notes. But none of this hinders Archambault. We might say the difference between Pellerite and Archambault is like that between cooked and raw. The civilized verses the wild. (Of course, Pellerite is in his mid-eighties. Archambault is half his age.) I was happy to dedicate Suite Tragique to Archambault. It was in fact daunting, for I spared no imagination. I considered not the performer, but only the music. This is a historically significant composition since the “warble” or multiphonic oscillation is utilized throughout the piece never before realized in a classical recording. I was free of the Pellerite precautions. That freedom Archambault allowed. Much time went by, however, and I didn’t hear from Archambault. He is an elite, professional architect, and took a position for a firm in Beijing. I honestly thought I would never hear again of the Suite, and resigned to leave it as a historical work, for the musicologists to discover. Then, in 2012, I learned that Archambault had recorded the entire suite at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music. He had prepared the recordings in there, and let me hear them through MP3s sent through email. I was astounded. I can only describe Archambault’s performance as para-musical. It was quite unlike anything I had ever heard. The true Indian flute is like a living spirit, a butterfly, a gentle breeze, something you hear in the woods, floating through the high branches, or wafting pass the moon. To the Suite Tragique, Archambault brings such precious fantasy. The sound is simply beyond musical convention. How he is able to do this, within strict baroque musical expression, is profound. Why the title, Suite Tragique? Why the “Tragique”? The idea was to remember the French encounter with the Canadian Algonquin tribes on the northeast coasts of the Americas. All tribes on the continent endured their encounters with the white Europeans and their foreign “civilization.” In the case of the Kichesipirini, the French were the specific influence. This circumstance, and the relationship of my harmonic explorations to the rigours of baroque musical composition, seemed to call for a combination. Suite Tragique commemorates the French encounter with the Kichesipirini, and also provides a musical venue in which I could create something for the solo American Indian flute. The Suite opens with the Overture. This ponderous procedure features the unique “warble” multiphonic oscillation of the American Indian flute within the Grave. The con moto (in 6/8) is followed by a return to the Grave, and the warble at the ending. The Overture is followed by a form of composition not so well-remembered, in fact, nearly forgotten. The second movement in the suite is three Echoi. The “echo” is a baroque improvisational form, if anything. Its origin is Byzantine chant, and it referred to a kind of melismatic formula or treatment of a cantus firmus. It later became a basic concept associated with late contrapuntal baroque organ works. It is not therefore an actual dance form, but a procedure. To associate improvisation with dance is concept more truly associated with modernity. The idea suited a basic compositional concept of a baroque suite: contrasting movements. The Overture was ponderous, rigourous, with abrupt, angular rhythms, and suggests all things orderly and disciplined. The “echo,” an improvisational procedure, is the perfect opposite. In the spirit world, a world so familiar in primitive, tribal life, I drew on folklore of Etienne Pigarouich an Algonquin Medicine Man (Archambault’s Ancestor) and the French Jesuit encounter with the Kichesipirini. The “Three Spells of Pigarouich” are written without bar lines, and without meter. The Gaillarde is a triple compound meter, and marks the return to both rhythm and meter, yet in a flavorful way, quite flowing, as opposed to the angular, abrupt rhythmic patterns of the Overture. The Gaillarde is four full pages long. (The Overture is five.) The Sarabande is plaintive, as a vocalise. Although it contains a variety of rhythmic gestures, it is melodic dance, rather than a rhythmic one. The fifth movement comprises two separate Minuettes, the first being the more lively of the two, as awakening from the melodic trance of the Sarabande. The rhythmic figures are exacting and anything but dreamy. The second Minuette, however, returns to a more meditative mood, with a contrasting absence of rhythmic emphasis. The sixth movement is a Rondeau, as a Courante Fantasie. It is lengthy movement (five pages), in compound triple-meter (6/8). It has faster moving sections, and slower moving sections, and is contains perhaps the most variety of any of the movements. Finally, the Gigue is harmonically arranged that there are more recognizable intervals tonal suggestions than in the other movements, but with also more radical juxtapositions of different sets of intervals. The play of the Gigue is, of course, to stir up energy. The rhythmical patterns of the Gigue, however, are quite conventional. All in all, musically, the Suite Tragique is simply a baroque suite of seven dance movements, with an unconventional harmonic organization, all transpiring within twelve different notes, or sixteen pitches (including the octave cognates of the first four notes of the chromatic scale). Timothy Archambault was given the music, well-edited with dynamics and slur marking. It is conventional classical music. However, in his flute, the music takes on a different character, beyond the written page, as something more than the music, or other than the form. It becomes a living, personal experience. It is as if the music belongs to the flute, and not the other way around. The flute does not serve the music. The music was simply a way, a means whereby the flute takes its own flight of fancy. It is magical. I call it paramusical. DAVID A. YEAGLEY Biography David A. Yeagley was born in Oklahoma City, OK in 1951. His father, Ned C. Yeagley, was white, and his mother, Norma Juanita Portillo Yeagley, was Comanche Indian. Through his mother, Yeagley is a fifth generation direct descendent of Comanche leader Bad Eagle. Yeagley is an enrolled member of the Comanche Nation. In 1970, Yeagley entered Oberlin Conservatory of Music (Oberlin, Ohio) where he majored in piano performance and composition. He studied composition with Joseph Wood and Richard Hoffman. His interest in composition prevailed for spiritual reasons. He graduated in late 1974, and then entered Yale University School of Divinity, in New Haven Connecticut (1975). He pursued the meaning of “religious” music, and considered the ministry as a profession. In 1976 he became a Ford Fellow, and transferred to Emory University (Atlanta, Georgia), continuing the study of music in its sociological, world context. He finished his Master of Divinity from Yale in 1979, and completed his Master of Arts from Emory in 1981. Yeagley began a late doctorate at the University of Arizona in 1992. There he studied piano with Nicholas Zumbro, and composition with Daniel Asia whom helped him to develop a new system of harmonic organization. He graduated with a Doctorate of Musical Arts in late 1994 and was a Kellogg Fellow in the American Indian Ambassador program of LaDonna Harris’ Americans for Indian Opportunity. In 2004 he made his first recordings specializing in American Indian classical flute, the first Indian composer to do so. He employed the new harmonic organization he had created under Dan Asia. By 2007, Yeagley had more recordings on professional labels than any other American Indian classical composer, including Azica, Opus One, and Albany. His recorded works include solo instrumental with orchestra (concerto style), unaccompanied instrumental, scenes from his grand opera on the Holocaust, “Jacek” (2005), and full-length movie score, “Daughter of Dawn” (2007). Timothy Archambault Biography Timothy Archambault born in Willimantic, CT in 1971. He studied music theory at Brown University and holds a Bachelor of Architecture and Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design. Through his paternal grandmother Juliette Lamoureux, Archambault is a direct descendent of Kichesipirini Shaking Tent Medicine Man Etiénne Pigarouich. He is a Hereditary Senator of the Kichesipirini Algonquin First Nation, a member of the Métis Nation of Quebec, and First Nations Composer Initiative. His American Indian Flute repertoire includes traditional Canadian Algonquin flute songs (recorded for the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian Archives in 2008), early 20th-century American Indian flute music, and new compositions by American Indian composers: Raven Chacon (Navaho), George Quincy (Choctaw), and David Yeagley (Comanche). He has recorded with The Polish National Radio Symphony (Opus One), The Coast Orchestra, The Bronx Arts Ensemble (Lyrichord), The Queen’s Chamber Band (Lyrichord), The TICO Orchestra, and The Oklahoma City University Philharmonic. In October 2006 at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., he was the first flute player in history to perform the “warble” technique ie: multi-phonic oscillation within a world premiere performance of new classical compositions by American Indian Composer David Yeagley. He continues to revive authentic traditional American Indian flute techniques within the context of Contemporary Classical Music.