Doppler Effect (1998) for flute, viola, harp

Review from LucidCulture: 01/19/2014: Last night in the Lincoln Center neighborhood, the Fire Pink Trio defied the deep freeze with a fascinating performance that was by turns lively, kinetic and balmy, sponsored by the New York Viola Society. Flutist Debra Reuter-Pivetta, violist Sheila Browne and concert harpist Jacquelyn Bartlett began the evening with Doppler Effect, by Adrienne Albert. Essentially, what the composer does with the effect is very clever – she turns it into a vamp, which the trio latched onto with a verve that matched Albert’s intention of evoking a busy pedestrian plaza in Rome, and the challenge of finding calm amidst the bustle. This purposeful and nonchalantly catchy piece gave Reuter-Pivetta and Browne a chance to air out their resonant lower registers against Bartlett’s rhythmic drive, with some droll glissandoing doppler effects finally appearing as the bluster reached a crescendo. The notion of writing a piece based on the findings of an Austrian mathematician who observed the increase and decrease in the pitch of sound when the source and observer are getting closer or further apart came to me while traveling through Italy and hearing the myriad sirens passing by through the dense traffic. The motif descends by a minor second returning to the original harmony combined with the repeated minor seconds portraying the incessant sounds of car horns. The melodic lines portray the vibrancy and sensuality of the people in contrast to the craziness around them.