2005- for Trio Accanto
for Saxophone, Percussion, Piano
9′. Abridge version (for the project “Last of their Kin(d)”: 7′
WP 17 Oct. 2025, Festival TRANSIT- Leuven, Belgium (STUK)
Trio Accanto: Marcus Weiss (Saxophone), Christian Dierstein (Percussion), Stefan Wirth (Piano)
Co-presentation Rainy Days, Gare du Nord Basel, Ultraschall Berlin, Acht Brücken
With support from Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung
Topus Musikverlag Order No.: …
Score Preview (Publisher, pdf)
The golden toad was a tiny brightly coloured toad – named after the typical brilliant orange colouring of the male. Their habitat was a very small area in Costa Rica’s Monteverde Cloud Forest (the “elfin forest” or mountain range Cordillera de Tilarán). They were first sighted in 1964. The last toad was sighted in 1989. I tried to piece together from descriptions what this toad may have sounded like. Although there are no recordings, I oriented myself towards recordings of other Bufonidae toads. I compiled samples from these similar species and sent them to the musicians, and together we tried out different means to imitate them. Some of these sound qualities made their way into my final composition. The field biologist Marty Crump, in her book “In search of the golden frog” describes her first encounters with the golden toad in 1987 and their subsequent decline until May 1989, when her partner sighted the last male. She describes their “explosive” breeding habits. All females would lay their eggs during a short period of time. The males would seek out the females and pile themselves on top of them forming what herpetologist Jay Savage described in 1965 as “writhing masses of toad-balls”. Inspired by this behavior, I set out to create a musical composition that, instead of emulating the sound of the toads, emulated their intense, fierce, complex mating behavior. I used knot-theory to generate winding melodic contours and concurrent conflicting rhythmic and temporal streams. I molded the density of attacks after the number of sighted golden toads from 1964-1987- each year being ca.19 seconds – so the sprightly, lively musical textures experience a sudden decline in density towards the end of the piece. I find it tragic, experiencing this trajectory, even when here only expressed in music.
Annesley Black