Tag Archives: The Waking Sun

The Nobility of Women, Chestnut Hill Local

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Referring to Vespers and saying that I have made a name from  “composing new music for older instruments,” Michael Caruso in the Chestnut Hill Local calls The Nobility of Women “concisely pointed character sketches of baroque dances.”

I can’t deny that I’ve become known as someone who can write for historical instruments. Mélomanie approached me about a piece for them—which became Nobility—after they heard Vespers. The Crossing and the Baroque orchestra Tempesta di Mare talked to me about The Waking Sun after Vespers.

People sometimes ask me if I mind. I suppose McLean Stevenson was asked if he minded being Lt. Col. Henry Blake on M*A*S*H. I don’t mind. I love it. If people think that’s what I do, fine, as I love writing for all kinds of instruments, and love the challenge of releasing the gorgeous sounds of recorders, dulcians, gambas, or what have you.

But I don’t think of myself that way. I’ve composed choral music, lots of orchestral works, and songs and chamber music for decades. I’m working on many different projects now, none of which use “early” instruments. If I go back to it, I’d be delighted, though.

Caruso had nice things to say, including that “Melomanie gave The Nobility of Women a sterling reading.”

The Crossing sings my music on the radio

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Live performances of Vespers, The Waking Sun, and Where Flames a Word will be on the radio this weekend:

Sunday, January 22, 2012
3:00 – 5:00 PM
WRTI – 90.1FM, Philadelphia
and online anywhere: www.wrti.org

From The Crossing: “Vespers, the work that brought Kile Smith into our lives and hearts, recorded live in concert at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill on Sunday January 8th, 2012 in a joyful collaboration with Piffaro, The Renaissance Band, will be the first broadcast in a series of live Crossing concerts on WRTI, 90.1FM, Philadelphia.

The remainder of the program will include two pieces The Crossing commissioned from Kile, 2009′s Where flames a word, for our Celan Project, and 2011′s The Waking Sun for our Seneca Sounds Project.”

Donald and I will briefly discuss the music. But it’s mostly the music.

The Waking Sun in the Chestnut Hill Local

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Seven members of Tempesta di Mare Baroque Orchestra accompanied The Crossing under Nally’s direction in a work that begins rhythmically energetically and harmonically astringently but that little by little over the course of its six movements leaves its dissonances behind to become more and more consonant, abandons its sharply etched rhythms in favor of more and more lyricism. By its conclusion, “The Waking Sun” is a soothing lullaby of the soul’s peaceful ascension into heavenly rest.

Michael Caruso, Chestnut Hill Local, 23 June 2011

The Waking Sun in the Broad Street Review

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Tom Purdom’s review is here. He likes The Waking Sun a lot, although he thinks that my handling of Seneca doesn’t reflect as integrated a worldview as my recent works on Christian themes (Exsultet, Vespers, and Two Laudate Psalms). But it is inventive and expressive as they are, he writes. The Tantalus section seemed to resonate particularly. I’m hearing that from many people. The Crossing receives well-deserved praise for all the performances.

A letter responds to his review here, with especially nice things to say about the finale. Thank you, both!

The Waking Sun, 6. While on such beauty the lover gazes

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6. While on such beauty the lover gazes
While on such beauty the lover gazes, her cheeks suddenly glow with rosy blush. Snowy wool turns crimson thus when bathed in purple flood; so gleams the waking sun when the shepherd, wet with the dew of the dawn of the day, considers it. —Medea

The Waking Sun centers on D, the individual sections being in these modes: 1. B minor — 2. D Dorian — 3. D minor — 4. A Mixolydian — 5. B minor — 6. D Lydian. I’ve never bothered so much with key relationships, but look for modal color appropriate to the purpose at hand. The old church modes usually provide enough variety and stability to please me, so these are what I use in most of my music.

While the text of “A king is he” would make a fine summation, it started to ring hollow as the ending for this work, especially as it appealed so un-stoically to my own ego. “While on such beauty” argues for the other side of desire, not for the elimination of it.

But what really convinced me was recently seeing a performance of the final duet of Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea. Soft and haunting, “Pur ti miro” (I gaze at you, I possess you) is utterly mesmerizing with its simple four-note ground bass and sweet, biting counterpoint. It is even more remarkable as the ending of an entire opera. That Seneca plays such an important role in Poppea was another connection.

All the instruments but the theorbo are silent for the finale of The Waking Sun, so when the theorbo drops out, the choir is unaccompanied for about the last five minutes of the piece. The ostinato continues in a bass voice, and the choir eventually divides into twelve parts. Each voice repeats its own short phrase, leaves, then re-enters, repeating the words of the title.

18 Jun 2011. The Waking Sun. The Crossing, Tempesta di Mare. Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, 8 pm

The Waking Sun, 5. A king is he

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5. A king is he
A king is he who has no fear; a king is he who naught desires. Such kingdom on himself each man bestows. —Thyestes

If you can have a fuguing tune without the fuguing part, “A king is he” is that piece. I started to write the imitative section that should follow the homophonic opening, but was dissatisfied with every idea. So I repeated the opening, with minor variations in the voices, and peeled away the accompaniment.

I put in most every “wrong” voice-leading I could think of: doubled major thirds, tripled octaves, directisms, parallelisms, and clashes of various sorts. This was to show, I suppose, how fearless, as a king, I was.

The plan was that “A king is he” would be the last section, with “In whose kingdom shall you die?” appended at the end. But it more and more started to sound like a sermon. Now, sermons have their place; I gladly hear one every week. But I don’t think they have a place in music. One could set a sermon to music, but it would cease to be reasoned discourse. Similarly, music attempting to put forward a position ceases to be music.

In any case, the next section grew in importance as an entry into the most appealing aspect, to me, of Seneca’s thought.

18 Jun 2011. The Waking Sun. The Crossing, Tempesta di Mare. Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, 8 pm

The Waking Sun, 4. Weary, with empty throat, stands Tantalus

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4. Weary, with empty throat, stands Tantalus
Weary, with empty throat, stands Tantalus; above his guilty head hangs plenteous food; on either side, with laden boughs, a tree leans over him and, bending and trembling beneath its weight of fruit, makes sport with his wide-straining jaws. He tries no more to touch, he turns away his eyes, he tightly shuts his lips; behind clenched teeth he bars his hunger. Then the whole grove lets down its wealth, and the ripe fruits beckon from above. As his hands stretch toward the mocking gift, the whole harvest of the bending wood leaps up high, out of reach. Then comes a raging thirst, harder to bear than hunger. The poor wretch hurls himself at waves that motion to his lips, but they elude his grasp. Deep from the whirling stream he drinks but dust. —Thyestes

The idea of writing for Baroque instruments came up because the original concept was for The Waking Sun to be paired with Membra Jesu nostri of Dietrich Buxtehude. That changed, but the concept for this piece stayed the same, and so a couple of textural gestures came to mind. Somewhere in The Waking Sun I wanted to have a violin duet. Tantalus provided the perfect opportunity.

The two violins encapsulate a bit of text-painting, the image of the two trees bending down over Tantalus, offering fruit lower and lower, then springing up before he can reach it. The duet is a strict canon at the third below, with each iteration slightly longer than the one before.

From Tantalus comes tantalize, of course, and one could hardly invent a more apt myth than this. Punished by the gods for stealing their ambrosia, Tantalus is bound in this place, and cannot escape. He is tempted above and below by attractions to his flesh. The music is static for the most part, mirroring his helplessness. Voluptuous harmonies grow with his hope, then evaporate.

There’s an old, out-of-favor word that nicely describes this condition. It is wretchedness. A theology professor once told me that it means not that you are as bad as you can be, but that you are as bad off as you can be. Tantalus is indeed a poor wretch.

18 Jun 2011. The Waking Sun. The Crossing, Tempesta di Mare. Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, 8 pm