Category: Composition

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Three Milton Sonnets, Op. 13

Three Milton Sonnets (2017)

John Milton’s Sonnets were written for particular occasions, especially as encomiums to friends. The three I chose to set strike me as his most personal. The first, On the Religious Memory of Mrs. Catherine Thomson, my Christian Friend, Deceased Dec. 16, 1646, beautifully depicts his friend’s death as the soul finding freedom from the body. The second poem describes a vision or dream of his late wife, who had died in childbirth. The apparition is likened to the myth of Alcestis, who was rescued from the underworld by Hercules. It is likely that Milton’s blindness prevented him from ever seeing his second wife, giving special poignancy to the line “her face was veiled”. The third poem, Milton’s most famous sonnet, is about that blindness itself, prompting a moral question: “Doth God expect day labour, light denied?” The final song has two clear sections corresponding to the question and answer, which reflect the songs that have come before. The first section recalls the musical style of the second song, and the second section recalls that of the first.

I followed this set of three sonnets with a set of Shakespeare Sonnets the following year.

Three Milton Sonnets Complete
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String Quartet no. 3, Op. 12

String Quartet no. 3 (2017)

I. Adagio-Allegro appassionato
II. Menuetto (Allegro Moderato)-Trio
III.  Adagio
IV. Allegro molto

My third string quartet is long, passionate, and complex in structure, composed in the tradition of Beethoven’s late quartets. The first movement bends and stretches classical sonata form into something freer and more various, but still motivically unified. It begins in the “wrong” key, avoids a convincing cadence until the end of the exposition, and foreshadows one of the secondary theme in the introduction so that first becomes second, and second, first.

The second movement is a minuet and trio. The minuet, with its pizzicatos and syncopations, has a subdued melancholy echoing Brahms, while the rough-mannered, cheerful trio, with its use of drones, recalls Haydn’s “folk music” affect.

The Adagio movement is a free hybrid of sonata-rondo and theme and variation forms. The main theme is clear variation of the tender, slow theme that began the first movement, while the fugato that follows is based on the austere transition to the Allegro.

The finale is a sprightly, puckish Rondo in G minor.

String Quartet no 3 in G minor
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Chamber Opera: On the Wings of Poesy, Op. 11

Opera: On the Wings of Poesy (2015)

Posthumous portrait of John Keats by William Hilton, National Portrait Gallery London.

This hour-long chamber opera was my masters thesis at the Frost School of Music at University of Miami and is a particularly personal work. The libretto, written in collaboration with my brother Gabriel, explores the what-if scenario of a man who claims to be poet John Keats arriving in the contemporary era. How would the poetry of an artist from a different time be received? How would the unlikely claim of his identity be received? This scenario provides a clear occasion for a Classical/Romantic musical style, but it also allows me to explore why I compose the way I do – Keats finds his work dismissed as outmoded, as my music often has been.

In the opera, a professor of English, discouraged from writing poetry by its dismissal as old-fashioned imitation, runs into Keats, or perhaps a young man who simply thinks he is Keats. He inspires her to write again, and it is left to the listener to decide – is the man mad or impossible? The libretto includes many recitations of Keats’ original poems and settings of new poems in the style of Keats’ work. These poems are set as extended formal arias a la Mozart. The intervening material have a freer Romantic style, in which the orchestra plays the main melodies while the voices weave around them in a more speech like manner.

There are five musical motives that recur throughout the opera. The first two are presented in the prelude: a rushing, impetuous figure, is heard at the outset, and a lilting love-song associated with truth and beauty and the divine. The third motive, briefly suggested in the overture and used prominently in the dialogues between the characters, is a tender winding melody, evocative of the bond that forms between the characters. The fourth motive, characterized by a driving, syncopated rhythm, appears frequently to underscore the dramatic tension. The fifth motive is a sigh-like melody that is sequenced downward, evoking the character’s pasts with a sense of nostalgia.

Motive 1: “Mystery or madness?”
Motive 2 “Love, Truth and Beauty”
Motive 3: “John and Prof. Warren’s friendship”
Motive 4: “Dramatic transition”
Motive 5: “Recollection, nostalgia”


On the Wings of Poesy - Full Score
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Sonata for Violin and Piano in E minor, op. 10

Sonata for Violin and Piano in E minor, op. 10 (2015)

I. Andante lamentoso–Allegro
II. Andante
III. Allegretto

This piece was commissioned by fellow Frost School of Music student David Parks. When I asked what sort of piece he wanted me to write, David mentioned two things: that he loved the opening of Mozart’s dissonance quartet (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08uY0-ehL-w) (No. 19 in C Major, K. 465), and that surprisingly for a string player, he had a special liking for the key of D-flat major.  While D-flat major is a particularly difficult key for strings, it has a special, almost muted sound, which I employed in the Andante movement.

Mozart’s dissonance quartet inspired the opening of the first movement: dark and richly chromatic. Like the Mozart opening, the introduction briefly emphasizes “wrong” notes and slips quickly into distant keys before arriving at the main Allegro in E major. The main theme of the following Allegro section comprises three motives: a short fanfare-like motto, and a drawn-out, song-like melody (a la Don Giovanni courting(link)), and an elegant, weightless conclusion. Everything else in the movement stems from these three motives. The second movement begins and ends with a long-breathed, arching melody. Passed back and forth between the piano and violin, it slowly unfurls over an accompanying clock-like staccato figure. The piece concludes with a dark, melancholic rondo in E minor, with a main theme that seems both to dance and sigh. The final bars bring the sonata to a fiery, passionate close.

Sonata for Violin and Piano in E minor
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Variations on an Original Theme in D Major for Piano, Op. 9

Variations on an Original Theme in D Major for Piano (2015)

Tema — Andante e rubato
Var. 1 — Allegro
Var. 2 — Quasi tempo I ma un poco meno mosso
Var. 3 — Allegro
Var. 4 — Adagio
Var. 5 — Vivace
Var. 6 — Grave
Var. 7 — Allegro – Tempo I

This piece was commissioned by fellow Front Music School student Joanna Gonzalez. There is a strange union of peace with ecstasy, contentment with wonder, in the great variations of classical composers (Bach’s Goldberg Variations, or Beethoven’s late variation movements, or Rzewski’s The People United, for example). Continuously retracing the same patterns in ever new ways, the music traces a winding, mysterious path, coming full circle to conclude where it began, but transformed.

This smaller piece captures hints of that great art. The initial theme is more suggestion than melody, a haunting outline of possibilities to come. The first five variations draw heavily on Bach’s counterpoint and figuration, while the sixth occupies a different expressive world, full of sadness and doubt. This is answered by the alternatively triumphant and playful seventh variation. The piece concludes new version of the theme: what was previously suggested is now fully realized.

Variations for Piano in D major
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Tone Poem: “My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense”

Tone Poem: “My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense” (2016)

Keat’s poem “Ode to a Nightingale” served as the inspiration for this piece. Rather than text painting, the piece follows the poem’s progression of mood: a vague, existential longing, a fantastical nighttime journey away from reality, and a sudden return to the melancholic real world. Marking a significant departure from the musical styles I usually employ, this piece is a fun compositional challenge that incorporates stylistic currents of the early 20th century, drawing from composers as wide-ranging as Stravinsky, Debussy, Mahler, Weill, and Lehar.
The form of the piece is episodic, juxtaposing disparate styles in the tradition of Mahler. We first hear the unusual low growling of four solo double basses, on top of which a solo bassoon sings a plaintive rhapsody, a la Stravinsky’s Firebird. This is contrasted with diaphanous, impressionistic passages for full orchestra, culminating in a thunderous tutti. The tutti fades as the register falls, and the music seems to burrow itself into the earth in an abrupt stop. Then suddenly we find ourselves in the “realm of the night”—a solo cello plays a sort of Weimar era Cabaret tune reminiscent of Kurt Weill, which is accompanied by timpani and flutes and ironic commentary in the muted brass. The party is enlivened, as the entire orchestra plunges into a somewhat distorted Viennese Waltz suggestive of Lehar’s The Merry Widow. As this climaxes, an eerie sound, that of the cymbal played on timpani with pedal glissando, takes as back to the musical world of the opening.

Symphonic Poem - My Heart Aches
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Il Malincolico, for Oboe, Horn, and String Trio, Op. 8b

Il Malincolico, for Oboe, Horn, and String Trio (2015)

The title of this piece means “the melancholic one.” This feeling of pensive sadness mixed with longing is evoked by two contrasting musical ideas: the passionate rushing figure which begins the piece and the drawn out song melody first heard in the horn. Below the horn melody, the strings maintain a bustling texture, highlighting the emotional intensity of the melody.

Il Malincolico for Oboe, Horn and String Trio
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Quintet in F major for Clarinet, Bassoon, Two Horns, and Piano, Op. 8

Quintet in F major for Clarinet, Bassoon, Two Horns, and Piano, Op. 8 (2015)

I. Allegro
II. Andante quasi Adagio
III. Allegro vivace

I composed this piece for horn players Szilard Molnar and Rhonda Kremer as a companion piece to my String Quartet no. 2. The instrumentation was inspired by Mozart’s Piano Quintet K. 452, a piece for oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon, piano. In place of an oboe, I substituted two horns, because it would be such fun to compose with the Classical “hunting horn” figures normally reserved for orchestral works. The final movement begins with such a figure, first heard in the piano, quietly, almost as a suggestion to the horns. The horns take up the suggestion, entering in jubilant forte.

This piece is characterized by the special timbre produced by the four winds: an especially warm, blended tone. Acting as a wind choir, this quartet of winds passes musical ideas back and forth with the piano. An even more distilled wind trio appears in the second movement’s opening, a low, rich chorale for two horns and bassoon. As the movement develops, the winds trade a warm, amorous theme back and forth with the piano, delaying the clarinet’s entrance. After the theme, the clarinet finally enters with an extended and passionate aria-like passage. As the spontaneous, playful character of the outer movements might suggest, this instrumentation was especially fun to write for.

Quintet for Clarinet, Bassoon, Two Horns, and Piano
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Symphonic Movement in A major, Op. 7

Symphonic Movement in A major, Op. 7 (2014)

Adagio – Allegro con spirito

This movement cultivates that radiant joy expressed in many classical symphonies by Mozart and Haydn. The slow introduction begins with a high, angelic chorale for divisi violins. This becomes darker and more Romantic in color than the following Allegro, which opens with a gentle song that contrasts with the bustling energy of the following orchestral tuttis and the sprightly playfulness of the secondary theme. The limited selection of winds gives the piece a characteristic sound world: an emphasis on double reeds brightens, while the lack of heavy trumpets and timpani, with their martial connotations, has a lightening effect. A classical sense of inevitability permeates the piece, with one thing flowing naturally and logically from the next.

Symphony No 2 in A major mvt 1
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Song for Chamber Orchestra, Op. 6

Song for Chamber Orchestra, Op. 6 (2014)

Song, for chamber orchestra, was written for Bard College’s Conductors Institute and was premiered as part of the composer-conductor program. An intriguing orchestration puzzle was presented by the  chamber orchestra, with its solo strings and full wind sections: how to create a unified orchestral sound without full strings, and how to enable the solo strings to be prominent over the louder wind and brass choirs. I addressed the challenge by orchestrating contrapuntally in the style of Wagner and took specific inspiration from his Siegfried Idyll, also for chamber orchestra.

The title “Song” refers two things: firstly, the direct, songlike nature of the themes, and secondly, the structure of the piece, which is rather more complicated – three song-like ternary forms nested  in one larger ternary form, if you don’t include the brief fugal interlude. The first “song” is sung to a loved one, the second to one’s self. After a fugal interlude, the two song melodies and the fugue subject are combined together in one  final song.

Song for chamber orchestra