Compositions

A three-movement concerto for harpsichord and baroque string ensemble. The first movement is inspired by Bach’s D Minor Harpsichord Concerto BWV 1052 The second movement is based on the Chorale “Es ist Genug” and the third movement has a rhythmic drive reminiscent of Vivaldi.

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 three-movement suite that introduces some of the exotic sounds of Turkish and Arabic music: I Azaan, II Meditation, III Sama. Medium to Difficult.

The first movement is called Azaan, a call to worship, recited five times a day in Islamic cultures. The root of the word is derived from adhina meaning to listen, to hear, be informed about. The opening is a call on the solo trumpet stop, reminiscent of the highly ornamented chanting style of the Azaans. It is followed by a rhythmic section and an ornamented middle section on the Cornet stop. The initial Azaan melody returns at the climactic closing section.

The second movement is inspired by improvised instrumental music that accompanies the meditations of the whirling Dervishes of Rumi, or the Melevi. Mevlevi believe in performing their devotional prayers in the form of a dance and musical ceremony known as the Sama which involves whirling. Whirling evokes the circling movement of celestial objects, thus actively partaking in the movement whole creation. The third movement, Sama represents a mystical journey of one’s spiritual ascent through mind and love through deserting one’s ego.

The Arabic Suite should ideally be performed n a three-manual organ with a swell box, preferably with an electric combination system. The opening call is best performed on an assertive solo reed such as an Antiphonal Trumpet, Trompette en Chamade or similar. In the absence of such reed, a bright Gt. Trumpet with or without a Cornet stop can be used, however a darker, high pressure reed would not be ideal. The second movement should be improvisatory with the exception of the middle section. The solo flute of the Great and that of the Swell should be almost indistinguishable in color, but contrasting in volume, resulting in an echo effect. The last movement should be very powerful and rhythmic from beginning to end.

It is perfectly possible to perform the movements separately. Programming the Arabic Suite in a space with long acoustic delay is especially rewarding for the second and third movements.

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

The Double Concerto for Organ, Percussion and Strings composed in 2016 is, by the composer’s own admission, a pair to Francis Poulenc’s (1899– 1963) Organ Concerto in G minor. Consisting of one single long movement but clearly divided into sections, this composition engages in an intensive dialogue with the musical past: it quotes not only Poulenc’s piece (literally at the end of the work), but makes reference to Witold Lutosławski’s (1913–1994) Concerto for Orchestra, and Béla Bartók’s (1881–1945) Concerto for Orchestra may also have been one of the sources of inspiration. The piece starts as tone-colour music, with open fifths humming on the organ and vibraphone. Gradually in the strings a melody takes shape, which starts a dialogue with the organ, which in turn starts an aggressive solo. Through a series of varied characters and tone colours we arrive at an extremely virtuoso pedal solo, to which the timpani provide a counterpoint, we hear the first two bars of Poulenc’s Organ Concerto, there are shreds of themes heard earlier in the movement, and finally a strangely mixed fortissimo chord of seven notes concludes the piece.
Gergely Fazekas (Existentia CD Booklet, Hungaroton, 2019)

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.

A three-movement challenging sonata. I focused on idiomatic vocal lines in the first, special effects in the second and virtuosic elements in the last movements.

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.

This work for SSAATTBB a capella was commissioned by Andrew Shenton for the Boston Choral Ensemble in 2014. I set a haunting poem by William Butler Yeats. Here are samples of the world premier sung by BCE, conducted by Andrew Shenton.

I WENT out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
And walk among long dappled grass,

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun.

I composed this piece for the Yale Baroque Ensemble for a concert entitled “Reflections on Bach,” a performance of works by J. S. Bach side by side with works by contemporary composers. I picked the trio in G Major BWV 1039 for its wide range of expressive qualities: a calm peaceful first movement, a highly chromatic third and a powerful last movement.

In my first movement called “A place to stay” I emphasize the peaceful, almost folk -like character of the Bach

In the second movement “Harmonic Landscape” I use the harmonic spectrum of the third movement of the Bach as successions of tetrachords.

The last movement the fugue subject is derived from the last movement of the Bach, emphasizing the rhythmic drive by the extensive use of pizzicato strings and the harpsichordist’s use of the conga drums.

This piece was a study piece in Boulez’style, using the Sacher-chord in his Derive I and his gestural compositional style. The form consists of seven variations using a fixed order of the hexachord. The pivot pitch outlines a ciaccona bass line throughout all variations.

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”

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.

I wrote this piece for Canto Armonico and Simon Carrington. I used the biblical text of the annunciation, when the angel appears to Mary that she will be with a child. I was influenced by the music of the masters of the Notre Dame Polyphony and Franz Liszt.