Compositions

Syöjätär sometimes referred to as an "ogress", is a character in Finnish folklore.  I have first visited Musiikkitalo in 2021, when its main pipe organ was still in its planning phase. A year later, when I saw its rich specifications that included a quarter-tone division and a wind-regulating mechanism, I decided that I would write something for this instrument. A vague desire leaped into action only when I saw the first digital renderings of the  new organ on the International Kaija Saariaho Organ  Composition Competition’s website. I immediately started working out some ideas, deriving them directly from the organ’s evocative visual design and eclectic specification. The silvery wind ducts, like futuristic roots of a tree, creep up a black box reminded me of the Syöjätär, the character from Kalewala. The tangling pipes, the mystery of a black box filled with pipes, inspired me to compose a visceral, mystical, yet very energetic piece. The special effects, quarter-tone division, and the wind regulation on each division are all essential building blocks in my composition.  I am please that it has received the price of the Finnish Association of Composers as well as the top prize of the competition in the chamber orchestra and organ category. The premiere will take place at the Musiikkitalo in March 2024.

I have been commissioned by Miklós Környei to write a double concerto for Guitar and Cimbalom and String Orchestra for Musicians Libres in Budapest, Hungary. The inspiration came from Turkish Oude music for the first two movements. The last movement is a Vivaldian concerto grosso, inspired by the great Concerto in D Major "Grosso Mogul" RV 208. The premier took place on January 21, 2022 by Miklós Környei, guitar and the great Hungarian Cimbalom player András Szalai, with the Anima Musicae Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Balázs Horváth.

I. Lento, Improvisando- Allegro

II. Air

III. Vivace

This was a prelude for our 11 a.m. 2019 Easter Service at Saint Peter's Church. I use a small but symphonic-sounding ensemble of woodwind quintet and string quintet with a single percussion player and harp in this fun potpourri of Easter tunes.

This three-movement concerto is very special to me, not only because it brings back to my clarinetist roots, but it gave me the opportunity to express my very intimate relationship to this instrument. The first movement starts with a melody on the solo clarinet, supported by string tremolos that develops into an exciting development and a ecstatic ending. The second movement is a hopeful and dramatic slow movement exploring the wide expressing range of the instrument. The third movement is a virtuosic, fiercely difficult scherzo, with a solo cadenza for the clarinet.

An arrangement of the great Lutheran tune "Lasst uns Erfreuen" with an unnecessarily difficult harp part. We had one of the best harp players in the city (Melanie Genin) for our 2018 Easter service, so I made a nice part for her. She was very happy and so were the people listening.

I used a favorite small, symphonic-sounding chamber ensemble for this arrangement for our 2018 Easter service at Saint Peter's. The melody, an old French Carol, is in fact a Christmas tune re-fitted with an Easter text by John Campbell Crum (1872-1958). Since there was going to be dance during our service, I went all the way and used a rather blasphemes quotation from Richad Strauss' "Dance of the Seven Veils." There were no complaints from the clergy nor the parishioners. Only in New York City.. There is also a quite crazy piccolo passage at the end, which I rewrote for a subsequent performance per the request by the flute player Brandon George, but I still like the first, crazy version better.

Noël Nouvelet/Now the Green Blade Rises
(2018) for choir, orchestra and congregation by Bálint Karosi
The Saint Peter's Choir, Orchestra and Dance at Saint Peter's

1 Now the green blade riseth, from the buried grain,
Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

2 In the grave they laid Him, Love who had been slain,
Thinking that He never would awake again,
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

3 Forth He came at Easter, like the risen grain,
Jesus who for three days in the grave had lain;
Quick from the dead the risen One is seen:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

4 When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,
Jesus' touch can call us back to life again,
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

A three-movement concerto mixing schemata from Vivaldi and contemporary harmonic language for two violins. It is an arrangement of the opening piece in my Organ Book No. 1 that I arranged for baroque strings and harpsichord.

I composed this four movement symphony as a commission by the Wind Symphony at Concordia River Forest in Chicago for the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation. Each movement is based on a Lutheran Chorale:
I. A Mighty Fortress
II. All Glory to be on God on High
III. With Peace and Joy
IV. O How Brightly Shines the Morningstar
The premier took place at Saint Peter's on April 14, 2019 by the Southern New Hampshire University Wind Ensamble, under the baton of Richard Cook. There was no recording made, so here are some MIDI excerpts:

A three movement concertino for organ and baroque ensemble. It might be played on a small organ without pedals, even on a positive organ. The inspiration came from Handel's brilliant organ concerti. The third movement is Bartokian, quoting the Microcosmos' "Bulgarian Rhythm" No. 6
I. Vivace
II. Air
III. Prestissimo

A festive ouverture for Symphony Orchestra, commissioned by the Hungarian Opera House for their 2016 New Year Gala Concert.

Another Easter work based on the appointed Psalm 118 for Easter Sunday "This is the Day the Lord Has Made (2016)

Exoplanets are planets that orbit stars outside of the solar system. As of December 2015, the Kepler space telescope has discovered about two thousand planets and over five thousand candidates for exoplanets, most of which are gas giants, brown dwarfs, or other inhabitable hellish planets with little or no possibility for life as we know it. A small percentage of these planets, however, are in the so called “goldilock” zone, an optimal orbital distance from a parent star, in which a rocky planet could retain liquid water and thus develop living organisms. The first movements of my piece are musical depictions of the inhabitable planets such as Hot Jupiters, planets orbiting quazars. The last movement is in more tonal language, expressing my optimism for finding life outside of our solar system. In the video below, Gaspar Bakos, professor of astrophysics at Princeton University explains  his research on Exoplanets (in Hungarian) at the premier of the piece in Budapest on February 8, 2016.

The Triple Concerto for Cimbalom, Harp and Guitar was written for a commission from Musiciens Libres, a Hungarian chamber ensemble lead by guitarist Miklós Környei. This three- movement piece with unusual instrumentation starts with genuine “genesis music”, as if we were present just after the Big Bang, with the world still amorphous but full of energy (the chords might remind the listener of Ligeti, who is just as important a point of reference for Karosi as are Bach, Messiaen, or Boulez). At the beginning of the movement the soloists do not yet have personality, but their musical material gradually reveals itself, and finally after a monologue on the harp, the three instruments play together. The second, slow movement is symmetric in structure. The atonal music of the introduction and coda, with quarter- tones, flanks monologues by the three soloists which are particularly exotic in colour, and the music is staggeringly beautiful in the most traditional sense of the word. The closing movement, in line with the traditions of the concerto, is a breezy Finale: if the opening movement is about tone colour, the central movement about melody, then the closing movement is clearly about rhythm.

Gergely Fazekas (Existentia CD Booklet, Hungaroton, 2019)

Existentia was conceived as a memoriam to the great Hungarian poet Sándor Weöres (1913-89), whose work virtually everyone in Hungary encounters already in childhood. Like E.E. Cummings or Maurice Sendak, Weöres created work that appeals both to children and adults. He lived most of his life in Budapest, enduring the political and artistic oppression of the Communist era, during which time he wrote children’s verse and was a prolific translator of Chinese and Japanese texts. His interest in Eastern philosophy appears in his poetry, including the texts that inspired Bálint Karosi’s piece. Of the three sections, only the final brief section is sung; the other episodes are instrumental responses to the words. In addition to the tribute to Weöres, Existentia is a tribute to Hungary more generally, made clear in the use of the peculiarly Hungarian cimbalom as well as a folk melody. The use of folk music details is also, more obliquely, tribute to Ligeti and Bartók, and there is a direct quote (albeit perhaps obscure) of Franz Liszt.

The three movements represent pre-birth, life, and death. Cimbalom, vibraphone, harp, and celesta form a kind of percussion continuo whose almost constant presence lends a distinctive sound to the orchestra. The first movement is a sustained, shimmering sonic field, with slowly cycling lines and harmonies and much tremolo. The second (representing life) features a constant pules and dancing energy. A folk melody that Karosi encountered on Hungarian radio is introduced here but remains incomplete until the last movement. The finale refers directly to the start of Franz Liszt’s beautiful late tone poem From the Cradle to the Grave. Suggesting that full knowledge of life comes after death, the folk tune is heard in full, and Weöres’s words (from “Post-Existentia”) are finally heard out loud."
Existentia is a symphonic poem in three movements, inspired by three short poems by Sándor Weöres. I attempt to reflect the qualities I most appreciate in his works: rhythm, lyricism, simple forms and his sensitivity to the unique sonorities of the Hungarian language. The cimbalom is prominently featured in all movements, and a Transylvanian folk song from Gyimes appears in the second and third movements. The folk melody is heard briefly towards the end of “Existantia” and is featured in its original form in “Post Existentia,” a movement is based on the opening motive of Liszt’s last symphonic poem “From the Craddle to the Grave.” The concluding movement also features a solo violin and a soprano quoting the words of Post- existentia.

Weöres Sándor: Existentia
I. PRAE-EXISTENTIA
Isten gondol örökt!l fogva téged, elméjében léted mint szikla áll. Mi ehhez mérve
habfodornyi élted? És mit változtat rajtad a halál?
To God you are a thought for eternity, your existence a steady rock. But here your life is like the sea foam. What could death then bring you?
II. EXISTENTIA
Felébredek: nem az vagyok, ki voltam. Elalszom: holnap megint más leszek. De élve,
holtan, utcán, kriptaboltban én emlékezem és én feledek.
I wake up, I am not who I was. I fall asleep, tomorrow I will be different/someone else. But alive, dead, on the streets and in the crypt, I remember and I forget.
III. POST-EXISTENTIA
Nem nyughatsz addig, se halva, se élve, míg át nem sz!tted árnyad és szined a
szerelem végtelen sz!ttesébe, a béke aztán lesz csak a tied.
You will not rest, dead or alive until you saw your shade and color into the
eternal homespun of love. Peace will only be with you then.

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.

I composed this piece as part of my composition degree at Yale University for the Yale Philharmonia orchestra in 2013.

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"

This piece was commissioned by Laszlo Fassang for the opening season of the new organ at the Bartók Béla National Concert Hall in Budapest in 2007. The work has three movements, the first is a Ligeti-esque soundscape where the organ plays an integral part of the orchestra, opening with the lowest, 32' pipes of the organ along with Tuba, contrabassoon and contrabass clarinet. It was broadcast on American Public Media's Pipedreams in 2008. The show can be listened here.

Consonances is a concerto for organ and symphonic orchestra. I need to say this, because many people refer to it wrongly as my organ concerto. It was composed for a solo recital in the national concert hall in Budapest in the summer of 2007. I penned the first sketches in September 2006 and finished my orchestration in May 2007, one month before the concert, not having learned the organ part yet. The piece is twenty-five minutes long, in three movements that are divided with organ cadenzas.

The title consonances, as opposed to the lack of dissonances rather describes the blend, the “together-sounding” between the organ and the orchestra. In the first movement the organ is completely diluted in the massive orchestral sound, sometimes almost remains unnoticed. During his movement which is in fact a big crescendo, all the instruments are playing at the same time. The inspiration came from Ligeti’s requiem from the Kyrie movement, but rather than imitating the techniques of the recently died great Hungarian composer, I assigned each groups of instruments distinct motives to create the desired chaos-effect. In my orchestration I used instruments that match the sound of the new Muhlhausen organ at the symphony hall: right at the beginning of the piece the lowest pipes of the organ (bombard and open diaphason 32, and other 16’ reed pipes) play a dialogue with the muted tuba, contrabassoon, and the rarely used contra-bass clarinet. You might as well catch the bass drum tremolo and the timpani roll. The whole first movement ends with an organ cadenza with flute and clarinet registration in dialogue with the muted trumpet.

The second movement, or second type of consonances, can be described as chamber music in three sections, in a classical A B A variant form. The first and third sections are rhythmical and virtuosic scherzi where the organ is a part of a smaller chamber ensemble of percussion, strings and woodwinds. The texture is much more transparent than in the first movement, even though I use similar motives throughout the whol piece.. The B section is a calm and noble chorale fantasy based on the chorale “Christ Lag in Todesbanden” that appears as a slowly paced fanfare on the trumpets. You might not catch the melody, for the priority between the musical layers are not set by the composer: the listener is to choose what to listen to.

The beginning of the third movement presents the organ as a solo instrument for the first time. An improvised, virtuosic organ cadenza introduces a new pedal ostinato that is taken by the orchestra and driven to an orchestral climax. A new theme is then developed by the organ, bassoons and trombones over a rhythmic section on the kongo and tom-tom drums which leeds to a huge orchestral crescendo with various orchestral effects while the organ and the brass section are taking the lead. The climax result in repeated unison fifths played by the whole orchestra, with organ ornamentation above it. It is purely minimal music, which gives the whole piece a tonal definition, an archaic reference. The themes and the ambiance of the choral fantasy of the second movement come in mind in a reconciliation of themes, in consonances.