"Paradiso" from "Pictures of Eternity"

Hello all,

I haven't been active on the forums for a while aside from occasionally popping in to listen to new works and avail myself of some hearty debate between the Know-God and No-God camps. Having just finished up my BA in composition at Asbury College I figured it would be appropriate to post the score and recording of my magnum opus for my undergraduate career (I'm in graduate school now in a field unrelated to music). A portion of the entire work was performed on my senior recital in May, but the full work is a larger endeavor.

I've attached the program note from my recital along with a synth recording and a PDF orchestral score. The notes are centric on the pas-de-deux and glorification chorus since those were the excerpts performed, but many of the comments are applicable to the whole work. Enjoy!

The portion of my ballet-cantata Dante: Pictures of Eternity we will hear tonight is taken from the third act, which portrays Dante’s ascent through the spheres of Heaven on a journey to learn from the saints and ultimately to catch a short glimpse of the triune God. Potentially the most beautiful narrative summary of Christ’s redemptive work in all of earthly literature is found in Dante’s writing. I have chosen to make my Paradiso a stand-alone work for chorus to be supported by a symphonic version of the first two acts, Inferno and Purgatorio. A choreographed version of the entire ballet is currently under development by the Kentucky Repertory Dance Theater for a premiere in the 2009-2010 season.

The entire work is based on three key elements: Debussy’s La Mer scale (Lydian with a lowered seventh, interesting for its ability for every tone to “fit” within a single chord and its tendency to continue upward infinitely), the interval of a major second (here a punctuational element), and the Gregorian chant Kyrie Eleison.

The text is adapted from John Ciardi’s terza rima translation. I chose to set Dante’s lines in the pas de deux for the mezzo-soprano soloist purely as an issue of vocal timbre. The excerpt begins with Dante describing a sight within the heaven of the Moon, wherein the heavenly pallor of the saints blends in with the light pouring down from the highest heaven. Beatrice then explains why there are levels within Heaven, and her discourse turns to the perfection of God’s will and the complicity of the saints to be therein. Lastly we hear the exuberant glorification of the saints as the Poet and his Guide are translated to the sphere of Mars, where the saints sing praise to the Lord-of-the-Angel-Armies.

Translation of the Glorification Chorus (translation my own):

Hosanna to the Holy God, Lord-of-the-Angel-Armies,

illuminating with your highest-seated brightness

The blessed Fires of these kingdoms!

And yes, the quotations of the opening bar of movement III from Symphonie de Psaumes is completely intentional homage!

Performance recording on Youtube

EDIT: I just now noticed that the horn parts are only labeled "Horn in F"... there are supposed to be two of them and I'm just now realizing this proofreading error (among others). An mp3 is en route once I find a place to host it.

EDIT 2: In the performance recording you hear an organ; it's not on the score but we added it a week before the performance to help the choir out (only about 25 voices as a goodly number of the singers were also in the orchestra).

paradiso.pdf

paradiso.mid

It sounds very fanciful and grandiose: nice job!

i love it very much

i want to tell you one funny thing , your mp3 seem play another song , not the song from you tube

hahaaa

it is completely .. funny

but the socre is the most important , what the hell with the suck midi

you work is very cool ,i like it a lot ( not the midi)

hahaha

i want to tell you one funny thing , your mp3 seem play another song , not the song from you tube

hahaaa

Well, yes... we could only perform a portion since my school was (and still is) fairly small (ca. 1,400 undergraduate students), so we started on page 8 in the score and continued until the end of page 31. I do wish we could have done the whole thing, though :\

I'm in the process of reducing the whole work (along with Inferno and Purgatorio) down to a piano four-hands arrangement to make it more accessible.

Thanks for the kind words, everyone!

Very good. Your orchestra balances well with your singers. A sign of a good scorer! ;)

There is much to praise here, in particular your orchestration, which, as has been pointed out, does not in any way mask the singers, even when they are accompanied by brass. You also make good use of solo strings in various combinations. The text-setting is clear and presents few technical difficulties for the singers. It's very difficult for me to make any criticisms because the quality is so high, but there were a few moments where the piece seemed to lose some momentum, which I think was due to the harmonic language of sections. The music just seemed to dwell on a particular chord or circle round a few notes for just a little too long at times. The change in tempo was well handled but I wasn't entirely convinced by the transition in style from Debussy/Vaughan Williams to Stravinsky/John Adams. And I think in the faster section you rely too much on rhythm to provide momentum. Even though your orchestration is good I felt there wasn't enough timbral contrast. The strings were also used to accompany the winds instead of the other way round - not necessarily an error (Stravinsky omits the violins and violas entirely in the Symphony of Psalms), but they were generally underused apart from in the solos (I can't see a single passage where strings alone are playing, nor anything very melodic in the 'cello and 'bass parts), and the general 'sound' of the piece didn't display enough contrast.

Don't worry about the horn parts, they always appear two to a stave, so as long as it's clear that there are two parts nothing is amiss in the score. Did you not want four horns or did you not have enough players for that?

First of all you deserve kudos just for getting this massive group together :cool:

Your orchestration for winds and brass is very good & I'll be studying your score to learn from it. Your use of the strings - a little strange - you seem to use them almost as an afterthought. They deserve to be heard alone a few times.

I hear a lot of influences including Whitacre, Holst, Orff?, and John Adams. If you haven't seen Dr. Atomic yet you'll probably really like it. At the same time despite these influences you have a strong original voice in the first half, a voice that I really enjoy.

2nd half is a different story. I hear a little too much "Short Ride In A Fast Machine." :P I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this... am I totally wrong?

You definitely have talent. I hope you keep writing even if you're not pursuing music formally.

I hear a lot of influences including Whitacre, Holst, Orff?, and John Adams. If you haven't seen Dr. Atomic yet you'll probably really like it. At the same time despite these influences you have a strong original voice in the first half, a voice that I really enjoy.

2nd half is a different story. I hear a little too much "Short Ride In A Fast Machine." :P I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this... am I totally wrong?

Ack! I've been outed! Hahah, yes, the reference is a little too obvious, but I was hoping that the modal counterpoint in the text setting would be enough to counterbalance it... you wouldn't believe the trouble we in the choir had trying to get the second block of polymetric fugal writing learned (at "felices ignes horum malachoth"). But hey, I liked how it sounded!

I am indeed a fan of John Adams' music. Always have been, always will, and I admit that I think I could have handled the rhythmic drive in this section a little more creatively--but I'm at least proud of myself in that I've gotten out of the pattern of everything "edgy" I write turning out like some Rite of Spring redux, which was what most of my output for the first, oh, two years of my composing career turned out.

I also admit that I could have handled the string writing differently, but here were our forces in our chamber orchestra: 6.5.3.3.2... Part of that may also be my wind band and choral background--I'm a saxophonist (I actually play the line at the beginning of the recording!) and a choral/opera guy. I've been wanting to write something exclusively for strings for some time now but I'm going for the most performance opportunities possible--so I've been focusing on piano music, art songs, and choral pieces.

I am certainly planning to continue my work in music as it's so much a part of me and is decidedly one of my two vocations, but I don't take myself so seriously--especially after losing the honors composition competition to a non-major this past year. I'm working as a church choir director right now, so in a way I am following both of my vocations simultaneously. The added challenge of that kind of work is learning how to write interesting and engaging music for an untrained volunteer choir--they'd never be able to sing Paradiso. I love it, though.

Wow, this is a big work. Congratulations on getting this done and performed well.

As mentioned before, you obviously know that the orchestration for this piece is great. Never there is a moment where the orchestra covers any of the parts that should stand out. The harmonic language is also really interesting, especially at the Larghetto section. The modal counterpoint section is particularly interesting on the chorus. But yeah, as someone mentioned, it's too "Short Ride in a Fast Machine." I think the fact that your first few brass phrases and the pulse are really pretty much the same as the mentioned piece is the reason why. I did enjoy it though.

I agree with you though, that you could have handled the rhythmic writing better. I don't know, that section (the brassy and faster section) still sounds a bit slow to me...

Well, great work overall, would be great to hear the whole thing! =D