Elise commentary: Canyon enchantment

After a recent trip to Palo Duro Canyon, my husband astutely noted that “there are as many experiences at the canyon as there are ribbons of color in the Spanish skirts.” He was referring to the second largest canyon in the United States. And he was correct.

Palo Duro Canyon is about 120 miles long, as much as 20 miles wide and has a depth of more than 800 feet. Its elevation at the rim is 3,500 feet above sea level.

The steep sides of Palo Duro Canyon consist of bright banded layers of orange, red, yellow, brown, gray and white rocks that represent four different geologic periods and a time span of more than 240 million years. Fossils of long extinct animals and plants have been found embedded in the rock layers.

Imagine the colors above to look like strikingly beautifully embroidered Spanish skirts.

The canyon was formed by the Prairie Dog Fork of the Red River, which winds along the level surface of the Llano Estacado of West Texas, then suddenly runs off the Caprock Escarpment. Water erosion over the millennia has shaped the canyon's geological formations.

What could be more breathtaking than the views and leisure time at such an ancient escarpment?

I have one answer: Christopher Theofanidis’ brilliant 2023 concerto grosso called “Canyon” for string quartet and orchestra, which was commissioned to celebrate the Amarillo Symphony’s centennial, and was conducted superbly by Maestro George Jackson on April 19 and 20, 2024.

Before even listening to this piece, one must realize how rare and delightful it is for a composition to include both a quartet and a full orchestra in one piece of music.

The Harrington String Quartet gave a stand-out performance, as did the Symphony.

Think of picture within a picture, a play within a play, or even a Russian nesting doll. That kind of richness and layering enhanced the overall power of the composition, making Maestro Jackson’s conducting all the more dazzling.

The first movement of Christopher’s piece, “Red Landscape,” was inspired by the painter Georgia O’Keefe, who lived and worked in the area from 1916 to 1918.

As you listen to this movement, you may remember the first time you drove miles and miles through flat nothingness until you suddenly dropped into a massive chasm.

If you were lucky enough to travel after a good soaking rain, you would have witnessed a bold color you may have never seen before. Was it really red, or could it have been maroon, scarlet or cardinal? I think “red” covers them all.

When I was a child in the 1960’s (before the Texas State Park system installed concrete “elevations”), we would beg our parents to step on the gas and speed through the many water crossings in the canyon.

We loved having the red clay splash all over, and often even into, the car. Sometimes a turtle or a frog would make its way through the water.

The activity never stopped being fun.

I remember taking off our shoes and squishing as we waded through the red clay that gooped between our toes and stained our feet a wondrous rust color. Those memories are with me now, more than half a century later.

The second movement of Christopher’s piece, “Echoes,” calls to mind the many indigenous people who lived and worked the land until Francisco Vasquez de Coronado arrived in 1541.

What I imagined during this movement was the kind of life the different peoples lived in an unspoiled place centuries before the American Revolution.

What must they have thought about the sounds in the canyon? Did they hear the wild turkeys ambling across the paths? Were they afraid of snakes or insects? Surely, they encountered mule deer and road runners, along with other lifeforms.

Were they able to enjoy the winds as they whizzed down the canyon walls, and what would they have thought about the thunder on a night when the clap of sound roused them from sleep?

I would have loved to experience what these brave people did all those centuries ago, until the Fourth United States Cavalry forced the five indigenous tribes off their land in September of 1874.

In the third movement of the piece, “Stars and the Altar,” Christopher takes us to the sky, that magnificent firmament that has cloaked the canyon for millions of years.

As an unenthusiastic camper, even I remember lying on the ground with two high school friends, marveling at the stars, iridescent on a clear and empty night, as we talked about our dreams and fantasies of being what we then thought was grown up.

The stars never let us down, and I would like to think that they still hold the same magic for current generations as they did for us.

In the fourth movement, “Red River,” Christopher reminds us that this vast space was not carved overnight. It took millions of years for the fork of the Red River, along with the power of unyielding winds, to form the canyon.

In this movement, my touchstone was the experience of digging up a garden after a long winter. You can dig and rototill for hours and still barely have space enough to plant a single vegetable. How could it be, then, that a tributary could form such an expansive place?

All of the meandering trails and hills of the canyon remind us of the power of water and wind in a way we may not have thought before.

As our lives zigzag and weave through the decades, forming a tapestry of color and texture, so does Christopher Theofanidis’ magnificent concerto capture the essence of Palo Duro Canyon and prompt us to remember that there is almost nothing – absolutely nothing – as precious as the gift of Nature and music.

Thank you, Christopher Theofanidis, George Jackson, the Harrington String Quartet and the Amarillo Symphony for an evening that proved to be a balm for the soul.

This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Elise commentary: Canyon enchantment