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Sextet
2024
Bassoon
Electric Guitar
Flute
Piano
Soprano
Viola
- Program Notes
- Psalm 73 was written for the Norfolk New Music Festival at the Yale Summer School of Music. It was written to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Charles Ives’ birth. As such, I was asked to write a song using Charles Ives’ own poems. Many of Charles Ives' poems display his religious beliefs and belief that art possessed a sort of universal and redemptive power. As such, I chose to combine the bible verses from Psalm 73, a poignant meditation on injustice, doubt, and the eventual redemption of one’s faith in God. The first song titled “On the Goodness of God” is a pilgrimage of the poet’s faith, in which the poet goes from expressing their resentment towards God to redeeming their faith once again, ending with a hopeful note that all will be well with the world with God in his heaven. On the contrary, the second song titled “The Cage” is a whimsical and ironic depiction of the evils of the world. Embodying the eclectic spirit of Ives, I decided to incorporate elements of heavy metal, progressive rock, and techno into this movement. Additionally, this movement is a palimpsest on the original composition of Ives, The Cage, directly quoting and transforming the original musical materials. In fact, one of the core features of Ives’ art song is the repeated measures in the introduction. Using this feature, I transformed the art song into a sort of loop station, in which the different musical elements gradually build on top of each other through a process of constant repetition.
- Recording Notes
- Premiered at the Norfolk New Music Festival, Yale Summer School of Music
- Performer Credits
- Norfolk New Music Ensemble