Structures of Composition
2023 Semester 2
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Days Gone By
I wrote Days Gone By for WAAPA's Anime concert which featured WAAPA graduate and anime composer Kevin Penkin as musical director and included original anime-inspired pieces from composition students of all years.
The piece is a tribute to the nostalgic film scores of Studio Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi. I was specifically inspired by the pieces "Ashitaka and San" from the movie Princess Mononoke and "Reprise" from Spirited Away.
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I tried to invoke the nostalgic quality that so many people identify in these Studio Ghibli film scores. I studied the scores of "Ashitaka and San" and "Reprise" and incorporated a lot of the harmony used in those pieces. My lecturer Dr. Lindsay Vickery commented that the harmony in my piece also sounds a lot like the harmony of Rachmaninoff's music.
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In terms of instrumentation, I wrote specifically for HearNow Ensemble, a new music ensemble directed by Lindsay Vickery, Genevieve Wilkins, and Stuart James. HearNow's instrumentation is as follows;
Piccolo/Flutes - Isabella Eagles and Levi Venables | Oboe - Matilda Beel Del Alamo | Clarinets/Bass Clarinet - Lilli Holliday-Ryder and Riley Mccallion | Soprano/Alto/Tenor/Bariton Saxophones - Josh Sumich, Phoebe Cameron, Blake Faulkner and Andrea Jordan-Keane | Trumpets - Mark Schaap and Chris Zappa | Trombone - Aaron Canny and Lindsay ??? | Percussion and Drum Kit - Jonathan Parker, Monica De Snoo and Otto Gibbs | Electric Guitars - Josh Fairweather and Zoe Koong | Harp - Kira Gunn | Piano/Keyboard - Akari Komoto and Mac Ladyman | Violins - Percy Baker and Alice Broadhead | Viola - Hanae Wilding | Cello - Ben Buchanan | Acoustic/Electric Bass - Arvis Mena Lescay.
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My instrumentation ended up being: Flute, Alto Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Alto Sax, Tenor Sax, Trumpets 1 & 2, Trombones 1 & 2, Harp, Piano, Violins 1 & 2, Viola, Cello, and Contrabass.
I tried to give every instrument a good amount of material to play and judging by the feedback I received and how the piece turned out, I seemed to have struck a good balance of making the parts interesting but not too challenging.
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There was a bit of a hiccup in the performance where something happened with the string players in section C' (I think they missed their entry or something). Fortunately, everyone came back together for the very end, but I think if we had more rehearsal time, that problem might have been avoided.
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It was really amazing hearing this piece played live. It sounds so much warmer and richer than the MIDI playback of my notation software. Everyone played very well and I feel very blessed to have had this opportunity.
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In The Beginning
I was greatly encouraged by how well my Biblical impressionist tone poem from last semester was received, so I was inspired to write another one this semester.
As the name suggests, "In The Beginning" portrays the creation of the universe as described in Genesis 1 and 2. It also uses that passage of scripture as the program notes. I have copied the account below:
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Genesis 1:1-31 & 2:1-3
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1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. 8 And God called the expanse Heaven.[or Sky] And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
9 And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
11 And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. 16 And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17 And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
20 And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” 21 So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. 25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
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1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
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The Bible's account of creation contrasts with other explanations in that it tells a story of order and meaning, an all-powerful creative God who is completely in control and who designs everything deliberately and intricately, a God who is good and who makes good things. This idea was first and foremost on my mind as I was writing this piece. I didn't want the music to give the impression that creation was chaotic or scary, because that's not the core message of Genesis 1. Rather, I wanted to showcase its beauty, its orderliness, and its awe-inspiring scale.
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This was easily the most ambitious piece of music I've written to date.
It ended up being almost 9 minutes in length and was written for full orchestra plus Pipe Organ and SATB choir. Some sections of the piece were also fairly complex and I wrote most of it over the span of 2 weeks.
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I also experienced an issue where Sibelius could only play its general MIDI sounds, so I ended up switching to Musescore 4 (which has much better sounds) which I had to learn on the fly while I was composing this piece (NOTE: Musescore 4's dynamics aren't very good at the moment and I compensated for that so that the playback would sound natural. As such, the written dynamics may not translate well into real instruments).
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Clearly, there were some major challenges to overcome when writing this piece, but by the grace of God, everything came together in the end.
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Upon reflection, I think certain sections of this piece feel too short, so I hope to expand upon it in the future. I might even make each day its own movement.
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This piece was very rewarding to write. Not only am I proud of how it turned out musically, but I really like that it has a deeper meaning beyond that.
These biblical tone poems seem to be an incredible source of inspiration for me and I hope to keep doing more of them in the future.
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