Google defines “escape” as to “break free from confinement or control.”  The music for “Escape” does much the same thing.  The two instruments in this work are often treated as two halves of the same musical machine.  Their rhythmic and melodic patterns intertwine and play off of each other in order to create a musical entity that relies on each other and that, in effect, controls one another.  This play and control gets shifted back and forth to the players sometimes complete, and sometimes partial.  Eventually, musical ideas that can only exist with the other player will surface.  This new material then often escapes and forms the basis of the next movement.  Neither instrument can completely control this escape mechanism, and its process helps inform the musical material of the next section or movement.

Formally, the first three movements directly relate to the last three movements in the same order.  They are separated by the middle movement “Escape,” which acts as a safe haven for harmonic ideas that have broken free and join up with melodic ideas escaping from other parts of the piece.  The first letters of the other 6 movements spell “Escape,” so with this in mind, Escape escapes Escape.

-MM