moonlight without mercy

moonlight without mercy was commissioned by Rebecca Needham for her final doctoral recital, which is themed “Past, Present, Future” – this piece representing the “future.” The title is taken from Dorianne Laux’s poem Evening, published in 2019 in her Pulitzer Prize-winning book Only As the Day is Long. The poem is a commentary on climate change and environmental loss, which was a major theme for me as I was writing this piece, being surrounded by news of climate disasters – a snowless November on Mount Fuji, rampant wildfires in California, and devastating hurricanes along the East Coast. It opens with a dramatic piccolo cadenza before launching into fast, “menacing” music. The piano crashes into a haunting middle section, before returning to the fast material, this time faster and more urgent, building towards another piccolo cadenza, marked “harsh, desperate.” The piece ends with the wailing piccolo and reckless runs for both players. The harmonic material centers around “split thirds” – the clashing of both the major and minor third, an idea central to blues – and the use of the flattened ninth to communicate a sense of danger. The piccolo part is littered with extended techniques such as singing while playing, pitch bends, timbral trills, and quasi-beatboxing – these make it a flashy, show-off piece for the piccolo player, while also contributing to the chaotic nature of the piece.