Happy Easter! As the quarantine continues, I won’t have the usual things to present in the blog here because I haven’t really had a chance to record things. The churches that I currently have access are (mostly) closed and with the end of the semester looming I’m not sure I will have a chance to finish recording Sonata No. 1 for a bit. But never avail, I have a few recordings to get through for the time being.
While I have labeled this as “chamber,” it is really full symphony. As a part of my DMA studies I was required to write a large scale work and this is the result of a lot of revisions. A LOT of revisions. I think I put in the video that I worked on the piece from 2015 to 2019 and it may be more accurate to say 2013 to 2019. When I was first accepted into WVU’s DMA composition program, I began work on Paschal, which started off as a single movement, 20 minute work. It was very tonal, very inspired by Messiaen in many ways, and it was generally conservative.
Well, that was then and what the piece has morphed into is a three movement work totaling about 15 minutes. The entire piece uses the chants found for the Easter morning Mass, but that is merely for precompositional purposes. Mostly, I used the term Paschal in the sense that it is about spring. Growing up in Alaska, Spring was an explosive time, usually about two to three weeks where everything buds and grows. And this first movement is that moment early in the morning when the condensation has gathered and that image guided the creation of Ros in lucem.