Gemini

This past summer, I composed a pair of choral-orchestral works that offer, shall we say, a study in musical contrast.

The Angel

The sweet piece is this fantasia that I composed for my friend Marcello’s youth orchestra in Lexington, KY. It’s called We, The People, and it’s a pop anthem that I went full ham on. It’s got a Disneyesque choral and orchestral voicings, a High School Musical montage through American history, and a stomp-clap breakout section that plays to the rafters. It was given its premiere by a group of 350 teenagers (250 singers and 100 instrumentalists) and they did a stupendous job.

The Devil

Whereas We, The People has almost no minor chords in it, my setting of the Dies Irae has almost no major chords in it. In a way it’s grim and unremitting, but more importantly, it’s diabolical fun, basically my attempt at fusing together Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd and Schnittke’s A Faust Cantata (plus a little of Ligeti’s La grand macabre and Bernstein’s MASS.)

I guess now that I think about it, these two pieces are united by the fact that I wanted both of them to be entertainment first and foremost. I think the Dies Irae carries a deep and unsettling message, but I worked hard to make it anything but a “message piece.” American audiences — especially where I live in Seattle — are fed a steady diet of moralistic pablum as regards new music on classical concerts, and I could never knowingly bring myself to serve up such a dish.