Obliviana for orchestra

Obliviana is an orchestral meditation on the seemingly endless sprawl of human mechanism and technology, versus the timeless stasis of our natural minds and the natural world. I am often struck by the irony of how, as technology has “connected” us in ways previously unimaginable, it has also created new forms of splintering and loneliness. Such thoughts bring to my mind visions of gilded dystopias and eternal landscapes, simultaneously embracing the oblivions of ruin and unknowing.

The music of Obliviana juxtaposes the ideas of “human mechanism” and “human nature” in two large sections. The first half of the work presents titan-like chords, slowly moving with grandiose counterpoint. This music is technological in the best sense of the word, like a beautiful clock or awe-inspiring architecture. Suddenly, this tech-music reels out of control, creating chaotic and violent textures. A new chord, a “natural” chord, derived from the overtones of the open strings, begins to assert itself. It is a sonority of simultaneous consonance and dissonance. This chord, growing to the full orchestra, eventually smothers the technological element. There is a moment of serenity, and then something awakens.

The second half of the piece finds a new joy in the apparent bleakness. Harp, piano, and glockenspiel usher in a new energy, with the violent percussion of the first half replaced with delicate waves of clicking. A euphoric texture slowly builds to a delirious state, and the “mechanism” and “nature” ideas from before try once again to coexist, briefly intersecting on a single immense, unstable note.