Victoria Bond: Peculiar Plants (Composed for Kenneth Cooper).
Kenneth Cooper, harpsichord; Victoria Bond, narrator
Academy of Arts and Letters, New York (9/8/2008, premiere recording, Albany Records, produced by Max Wilcox, engineered by DavidMerrill, released 2009). See notes to #27 above.
Harpsichord: Jacob Kaeser (courtesy of Robert Turner).

[0:00] Introduction and Strangler Fig - [6:02] Venus Flytrap - [7:28] Creeping Moss - [10:35] Blushing Violet - [13:37] Deadly Nightshade - [16:12] Ghost Orchid - [18:57] Ragweed

Victoria has written as follows: "Development is a part of a plant's nature, but the Strangler Fig develops in a bizarre manner. It innocently alights on its host tree, a tiny seed that lodges in the crotch of a branch and sends out delicate tendrils in both directions. These slender stalks grow stronger and woodier, like thick vines. They grow down towards the tree's roots and up into its highest branches. Gradually, as these vines thicken, they strangle the host tree, sucking out its vital nutrients until it becomes merely the scaffolding around which the Strangler Fig weaves its dense and intricate web. Though despicable in its method, the Strangler Fig nonetheless develops into a plant of extraordinary beauty, its design so sculptural and graceful that it can resemble the liquid architecture of Gaudi. I was intrigued by this combination of beauty and treachery. The Strangler Fig was the first piece that I composed, and it began a suite of character studies for harpsichord written for Kenneth Cooper called Peculiar Plants. Since then, the garden has grown and Ken and I had great fun writing short poems to introduce each plant. Here are the offshoots." (Albany Records, 2009)