Pan-lom

Pan-lom is the first in a series of compositions exploring the metaphorical relationship between music and architecture. “Pan-lom” is the term for the bargeboard of a traditional Thai house. The bargeboard is the board which terminates each angled end of the roof. In Thai architecture it is often elaborately carved, one of the only sites on the traditional house to feature non-functional decoration. The Thai house is elevated above the ground and topped with a steeply angled roof to allow heat to escape and breeze to pass through the house. The name “pan-lom” means “to sculpt the wind”, a literal reference to this motion of wind through the house and an allusion to the position of bargeboard at the boundary between the stability of architectural structure and the transience of the natural environment. The elaboration of the pan-lom is an expression of balance between structure and nature, between stability and impermanence. This expression of the place of architecture in the natural world seems to me an apt metaphor for the balance between compositional structure and compositional fancy, and between the stability of compositional text and the ephemerality of performance. Furthermore, this attention to the aesthetic of the boundary parallels my composing on the boundary between Thai and Western classical musics, of which this piece is my most extensive example to date.

The ensemble includes five instruments from the Thai classical tradition. I have drawn from my experiences with both Thai and Western musics in this piece without attempting to make any clear musical divisions between the two, whether in terms of sections of the piece or instrumental groups. To write this piece, I first composed a melody in the Thai idiom using a formal model in which the melody is contracted in successive sections as the beat played by the Thai handbell accelerates (see the composition Pan-lom Thao). I then built this composition around that framework of structural acceleration, with the sections of the Thai melody distributed throughout. The melody first appears about seven minutes into the piece, played by the oboe, viola and ranaat ek (Thai xylophone).

Pan-lom is my Ph.D. dissertation composition for Duke University.

Instrumentation

soprano saxophone
oboe
violin
viola
cello
contrabass
ranaat ek (Thai xylophone)
khong wong yai (Thai gong circle)
hammer dulcimer
marimba
ching (Thai handbell) – one player
thone-rammana (Thai drums) – one player
mong (Thai button gong) – one player

Some instrumentation substitutions are possible.

8.5×11 PDF score (109 p.)
$40

For full-size conductor’s score, performance materials, or piano reductions, please contact me

All scores are published by 

 (ASCAP) and © Christopher Adler (ASCAP)