Compositions

In this solo cantata for soprano and period ensemble, I have used English translations of several of Bach's Easter cantata texts. It is also a chorale cantata, based on Ahle's "I am Content" chorale that prompted the whole tone harmonic language of the piece. I am particularly fond of the "Rejoice" movement that poses plenty of virtuosic passages for the soprano. Addy Sterret's agile and expressive voice gave me the inspiration to write this work for Saint Peter's 2021 Easter service. I scored the work for baroque strings, oboe, and continuo. The video recording was shot and edited by me at St Barnabas Episcopal Church in Greenwich, CT.

I. Recit (BWV 67 Erschienen ist der herrliche Tag)
The glorious day has appeared,
over which no one can rejoice enough:
Christ, our Lord, triumphs today,
He leads all His enemies captive.
Alleluia!

II. Aria (BWV 145/1)
Arise, my heart, the Lord's day
has driven off the night of fear:
Christ, who lay in the grave,
He has not remained in death.
From now on I am truly comforted,
Jesus has redeemed the world.

III. Recit (BWV 249/1)
Come, hasten and run, you fugitive feet,
Find the cave that hides Jesus!
Laughing and jesting
Accompany our hearts,
For our salvation has arisen!

IV. Chorale (Hymn Vs. 1)
I am content! My Jesus ever lives,
In whom my heart is pleased.
He has fulfilled the Law of God for me,
God's wrath He has appeased.
Since He in death could perish never,
I also shall not die forever.
I am content! I am content!

V. Aria (BWV 84/1)
I am content with the fortune
that my dear Lord bestows on me.
If I am not to have the comfort of riches,
then I thank God for little gifts
and am also not worthy of these.

VI. Recit (BWV 134/2)
Rise up believers! sing lovely songs;
A splendid, renewed Light shines in you.
The living Savior causes blessed times,
Rise, souls! You must prepare an offering,
Pay your duty to the Most High with thanksgiving.

VII. Aria (BW 66/1)
Rejoice, you hearts,
fade away, you sorrows,
the Savior lives and rules within you.
You can drive away
mourning, fear, anxious despair,
the Savior revives his spiritual kingdom.

VIII. Recit (BWV 145/4)
My Jesus lives,
no one can take this from me,
therefore I die without grieving.
I am certain
and I have assurance,
that the darkness of the grave
will raise me up to heavenly glory;
my Jesus lives,
now I have enough.
My heart and mind
will be in heaven even today,
to behold the Redeemer Himself.

IX. Chorale (Hymn Vs. 3)

I am content! My Jesus is my light,
My radiant sun of grace.
His cheering rays beam blessings forth for all,
Sweet comfort, hope, and peace.
This Easter sun has brought salvation
And everlasting exultation.
I am content! I am content!

I used English translations of Bach cantata texts and the words of the "O Antiphons" in my Advent Cantata. It is set for a Bach-style (period or not) orchestra: two oboes, strings and continuo. I dedicated it to our retiring Senior Pastor at Saint Peter's Church, the Rev. Amandus Derr. The Saint Peter's Bach Collegium premiered it for his ordination anniversary concert on January 25, 2020.

The design of my cantata follows closely that of Bach's Chorale Cantatas, in which  every movement has an unmistakable reference to its chorale tune or text, in my case the Advent Hymn "O Come, O come Emmanuel."  It is hard to miss the reference to BWV 140 in the concerto-style opening chorale fantasy, but I included some more subtle Bach techniques from his later period. The aria (No. 5) is interrupted by the choir (like in some arias in the St Matthew Passion), the Chorale fantasy (No. 9), in the oboes play the cantus firmus with three ornate vocal lines around it (like Suscepit in the Magnificat) and the arioso is a recit that sometimes becomes an arioso with the choir commenting on it. I chose the texts carefully, to be consistent with the Advent message of the O Antiphons. (My favorite is probably the bass aria No. 5 that has a poignant Lutheran text.)

1. Chorus

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
Hymn “O come, O come,” Vs. 1

2. Recit (T)

Marvel, o humanity, at this great mystery:
the Supreme Ruler appears to the world.
Here the treasures of heaven are uncovered,
here a divine manna is presented to us,
O miracle! The purity will be entirely unblemished

3. Aria (S)

Prepare the ways, prepare the path!
Prepare the ways
and make the footpaths
in faith and in life
smooth before the Highest.
The Messiah is coming!
Da capo
Text: BWV 132 No. 1, translation by Alfred Dürr

4. Recit (T)

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching from one end to the other,
mightily and sweetly ordering all things:
Come and teach us the way of prudence.
Text: O Antiphons (O Sapientia)

5. Aria (B) with Choir

Who are you? Ask your conscience,
then you must hear without hypocrisy whether you,
O human, are false or true.
Who are you? Ask the law,
it will tell you who you are,
a child of wrath in Satan's net,
A false and hypocritical Christian

Choir:
A false Christian, a child of wrath!
Da capo

Text: BWV 132 No. 1, translation by Alfred Dürr

6. Chorale (SSA)

O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel,
who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush
and gave him the law on Sinai:
Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel.
Text: O Antiphons (O Adonai)

7. Arioso (T) with Choir

I would freely confess to you God, I have not rightly acknowledged you before.
Though mouth and lips call you Lord and Father, yet my heart has turned away from you.

Choir:
I have denied you in my living.

Tenor:
How can you give me good testimony?
When Jesus your spirit and baptismal water cleansed me of my misdeeds,
I indeed promised to keep constant firm
faithfulness with you. Ahh, but alas the baptismal
Covenant is broken, I repent the unfaithfulness.

Choir:
O God have mercy on me!

Tenor:
O help me with unswerving loyalty
I may constantly renew in Faith the covenant of Grace.

Text: BWV 132 translation by Alfred Dürr

8. Aria (S)

Members of Christ consider what the savior has given to you
through baptism’s purifying bath!
With his blood and water fountain your garments become bright,
Which were stained with misdeeds.
Christ gave you as new garments scarlet, purple, white silk: these are the Christian’s splendor.

Members of Christ consider what the savior has given to you
through baptism’s purifying bath!

9. Chorale

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan's tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory o'er the grave.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

Hymn “O come, O come,” Vs. 2

I commissioned poet Kai-Hoffman Krull to compose a poem tackling various philosophical definitions of truths. The protagonist (T), is like an evangelist, tells three versions of the famous biblical scene when Jesus is interrogated by Pilate, and Pilate asks him: what is truth?
This fun, seven-minute cantata is set for a baroque ensemble; it is like a recitative with small ariosos with interludes quoting the string parts in Charles Ives' "Unanswered Question"

The question
-Kai Hoffman Krull (2017)

Pilate asked Jesus what is truth?

Jesus responded, Truth is yes
each word shaped by the other.
If you say I am Pilate and I say true
could I not say
yes? The mountains are sand
and the beach a mountain
Yes
true in my time, not yours.
In my time the mountains
were not yet formed.

When Pilate heard this
he went back outside and said
go and crucify him.

Pilate asked Jesus, What is truth?

Jesus responded, Truth is coherence
truth is when belief builds like rain creating the sea.
Can you take a man at the end
of his years and tell him
what he lived was not true
no, we believe what our days
teach us. Truth is the water
everyone must cup in their own fingers.

When Pilate heard this
he went back outside and said
go and crucify him.

Pilate asked Jesus, What is truth?

He responded, Truth is use.
If a person speaks the truth
a mind in the wind can come to the fire.
If a person speaks false their secret rusts
the nails of the home
and one day the wind
separates each board from the others. Tell me
Do not all tools need attention?

Tools must be used
for them to continue
to offer their use.

When Pilate heard this
he went back outside and said
go and crucify him.

Pilate asked Jesus, What is truth?

Jesus responded, Nothing is true
but reality makes it so.
Truth depends on the discovery of the real,
correspondences outside of our beliefs.
While it is possible to believe
in something that is false
it is the belief we should always question.

When Pilate had heard this
he went back outside and said:
I find no guilt in this man.

I wrote this piece for a commission by the Yale Summer Festival at Norfolk, CT to be performed at the closing concert of Simon Carrington's annual choir workshop. I commissioned Kai Hoffman-Krull to write a poem about the arbitrary redrawing of borders (re. the Russia-Crimea conflict earlier that year).  Molly Netter did a wonderful job with the demanding vocal lines.

Lines on a Page (2014)
--Kai Hoffman Krull
When did men begin owning this land? When did they look over a river,
see sun spilling over the creases of water, and believe this belonged to man?

Do you remember the day
you brought me to the river?
do you remember leaving
our shoes in the sand?
Do you remember how you cast
the pole like trees in wind.
Do you remember
as you brought that trout in
and laid it on the beach,
how the scales looked like wood
becoming coals becoming heat.
Do you remember the knife
you placed in my hand,
how the blade caught light
growing heavy in the sky
as though the day’s end
wished to linger.
I ask this brother
For my memories are less and less mine
lost ever more in the current of time.
Whose hand brought blood and why?
I am a wanderer in the wilderness of the mind.

It was my first collaboration with poet Kai Hoffmann Krull, who wrote the words for my cantata "Words of Beginning" for the 175th anniversary of First Lutheran church of Boston. Kai's text reflects the light and dark imagery in J. S. Bach’s great Reformation cantata BWV 79 “Gott, der Herr ist Sonn und Schild” and is expanded to a narrative on Genesis the star of Bethlehem and Luther’s enlightenment. I used almost the same orchestration as Bach in his Reformation Cantata. In 2018 I re-orchestrated the soprano aria for period instruments for a performance at Saint Peter's NYC for the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation.

Program Booklet-Words of Beginning

1. Opening Chorus

In the beginning was the word
and the word was with him and in him and him

What story does the sun tell of the Holy
as lumen spilled from pen to page of day
words capturing each crest of wave
each crease of current, each ripple, each fragile break
of water upon water
upon water upon water
as wind formed crescents on the surface
the day when light was made

What of the stars that day when day was shaped

what of their questions as they were molded like clay
by hands of words and words of light
what did they think as their glow moved away
into darkness that was beginning before it began
what did they see when seeing became sight?

2. Aria (S)

Before he followed the star
the shepherd followed whiteness,
woolen backs entering fields
of long grass filled with the long sun,
the moist dew of dawn.
With wind from the east each blade
bowed as though giving themselves
to the unseen. Soon he too will bow
in the words of light,
for the sight of wings
feathers of a whiteness more than white,
a brightness more than bright.

3 Aria (B)

Before he wrote he prayed
and the feather flew across the page
between ink and each impression of grain
words speaking back to him
Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices
All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given
The Son and Him Who reigns with Them in highest Heaven

4 Chorale

"Now thank we all our God"

I commissioned poet Audrey Fernandez-Fraser to write a poem that reflects on the Funeral Cantata by Georg Melchior Hoffmann (formerly attributed to J. S. Bach as BWV 53). I expanded on the use of bells in my piece, making it integral to the expression of the text. The original piece was for a baroque trio (2vln, vcl., hrpsch.) but I added a baroque viola for a 2018 performance by Daniel Moody and members of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra at Stamford University.

In “The Final Wait,” I express the progression of feelings and afterlife imaginings that beset my heart and mind when I ponder the fateful bell-strikes that sound throughout the poignantly joyful alto aria, BWV 53.

When Balint asked me to base my poem on this aria, he suggested a ritornello form. This form lends itself naturally to the speaker’s vacillation between impressions of her present state – on a sickbed, perhaps – and visions of what death might bring. But the speaker does not stagnate in her ruminations. She journeys through territories of memory and imagination, beholding alternately fearsome and beautiful inventions of her mind, or perhaps premonitions of a life to come. Through the poem, she moves from anxious waiting, into a mysterious light, then back to her lonely, deadening surroundings. Then, more vividly, she sees angels, demons, friends, and heaven’s landscapes. By the end of the aria, she is “ready”. Perhaps her diverse musings have satisfied her curious mind, perhaps she is simply exhausted; or maybe she has glimpsed truth in places as yet uncharted by us, and there found comfort."

The Final Wait

Waiting, in my final hours, anxious and alone,
Clock ticking, unforgiving. What will come with the striking bell?
My heart-beats come faster, wishing time would come slower
Closer and closer I’m coming to the unknown hour

What is this illuminating light, in my ruminating mind—
Is it from the sun that warmed my childhood walks?
Is it of the Son, that humble holy one?
Sun or Son, Lux aeterna, will my shortening candle’s flame became you?

Angels, I can see you! Will you lift this heavy body?
Share your feathered wings with me,
Lift me flying to a perpetual place
Of growing life, where strong hearts beat

My heart-beats hasten. I fear.
Evil spirits! Dead spirits!
Wailing in my frightened ears, biting at my skin.
Night grows darker, my mind is dim.

Yet – I see a table, set with delights,
And people whose hearts have struggled and laughed with mine
My beloved ones gather to sing and feast, faces lit with life.
Is it Heaven I’m seeing, or only Earth?

Heaven! In heaven are there pastures? I see verdant pastures,
They are irrigated with waters from rivers of life, flowing from tears of love.
Lavender and jades, grains and bushes, forests!
And beyond them, flocks of creatures, strange and kind

I wait, I wait for my end to come, an answer to my questions:
I cannot resist the pulse of time, the final beat and bell
My heart hopes, heavy and hoping.
I’m ready for the rest

Three songs on poems by Jorge Luis Borges for mezzo soprano, piano and two percussionists. I was inspired by the colorful use of percussion instruments by George Crumb.

I. The South

To have watched from one of your patios
the ancient stars,
from the bench of shadow to have watched
those scattered lights
that my ignorance has learned no names for
nor their places in constellations,
to have heard the note of water
in the cistern,
known the scent of jasmine and honeysuckle,
the silence of the sleeping bird,
the arch of the entrance, the damp
-- these things perhaps are the poem.

II. Nightmare

I’m dreaming of an ancient king. His crown
Is iron and his gaze is dead. There are
No faces like that now. And never far
His firm sword guards him, loyal like his hound.
I do not know if he is from Norway
Or Northumberland. But from the north, I know.
His tight red beard covers his chest. And no,
His blind gaze doesn’t hurl a gaze my way.
From what extinguished mirror, from what ship
On seas that were his gambling wilderness
Could this man, gray and grave, venture a trip
Forcing on me his past and bitterness?
I know he dreams and judges me, is drawn
Erect. Day breaks up night. He hasn’t gone.

III. Patio

With evening
the two or three colors of the patio grew weary.
Tonight, the moon’s bright circle
does not dominate outer space.
Patio, heaven’s watercourse.
The patio is the slope
down which the sky flows into the house.
Serenely
eternity waits at the crossway of the stars.
It is lovely to live in the dark friendliness
of covered entrance way, arbor, and wellhead.

A cantata for solo tenor, organ, percussion, violin and harp, on a poem by Czeslaw Milosz

I composed Orpheus's Harp in the autumn of 2009, at the commission of the Hungarian National Concert Hall. Miłosz' Second Space English poetry book came to my attention in the summer, and after reading the book "Orpheus and Eurydice", I knew that this was what I needed to write music for. Unfortunately, there was no Hungarian translator, but since the Polish-born poet lived in the United States, I decided to set the poem in its original English. I commissioned the first Hungarian translation of Miłosz' poem for this performance.

A mü leírása Magyarul

My composition was inspired by today's concert for many reasons. First and foremost, my inspiration came from Szabolcs Brickner's voice, who is my long-time friend and with whom we started our clarinet studies in elementary school. Szabolcs' bel canto singing style inspired the melodic lines in this composition. Secondly, the organ of the Mupa, whose Sostenuto function plays an important role in my work. When this feature is turned on, the organ keeps on dropping sounds, resulting in wonderful sounds. Thirdly, Miłos' poem is a bit different from my own and that of other musicians. Orpheus is the first recorded musician to bring happiness to the underworld with his music.

In the early stages of my work, the violin plays Eurydice. The voice of the violin encourages Orpheus to enter Hades' gate. We will accompany him in the underworld, the realm of the dark souls, where "pine is the darkness of the fold". Here, Orpheus meets a multitude of dead souls and recognizes many faces of his own past. The organ registers, the bass drum and timpani paint this environment. With his harp, Orpheus sings the " Song of the Earth" against the emptiness of the dark souls. This is at the heart of the work, Orpheus' life-affirming song, evocative of earthly happiness, after which Persephone releases Eurydice under the well-known conditions. The “Song of the Earth” is followed by a rhythmic section, where the xylophone and the violin solo evoke Eurydice's footsteps, which are repeatedly interrupted by Orpheus' listening and finally his turning back. The loss of Eurydice in this verse comes after a somewhat unexpected turn: Orpheus turns around and, as he waited, sees nobody.

The concluding chapter of “Second Space” by the Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet Czeszlaw Milosz describes Orpheus' journey in a contemporary setting thus speaking to us directly. Milos' "Second Space" is a dimension where the poet opens a small window and where known things appear unknown to us. The alternation of mysticism, religiosity, light and shadow characterizes Milos' individual poetry, that is echoed in my own twist of tonal musical language and modern instrumentation. The basic mood of the poem is sad: Orpheus (humanity) loses faith in the resurrection, and thus Eurydice (salvation).

To put it simply, the voice of Eurydice is the violin, and the harp is Orpheus’ own instrument. The percussion instruments and the organ together paint the diverse landscapes of the underworld. The tenor narrates through to the end of the composition, mainly as a narrator, but occasionally as Orpheus or Persephone. Special attention is paid to the vibraphone and the crotales line at the beginning of my work, as well as to the use of the organ’s enclosed divisions (Positiv and Schwellerwerk). This sound effect was brought to my attention by my colleague Laszlo Fassang at the completion of the Mupa organ