Chamber Music Lab
2024 Semester 2
The Lord is My Shepherd
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The Lord is My Shepherd is a semi-programmatic piece, portraying
the imagery of and reflecting on Psalm 23:
Psalm 23
1 The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
3 He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
For each section of the piece, I tried to portray what I saw to be the main 'pictures' described in the passage - the green pastures, the quiet waters, the valley of the shadow of death, and the house of the lord.
I used flute and strings prolifically to evoke the pastoral vibe that the scripture is also conveying. For the water section, I used ambiguous rhythm, harmonically static arpeggios, and long sustained notes, to give the impression of a gently rippling body of water.
Rather than having the whole piece be in a state of peace ("I fear no evil"), I tried - especially with the dark section - to convey the darkness of the metaphorical valley and to reflect the reality of following God - that you will come across 'dark valleys' and even though God's presence means you need not be afraid, it is all too easy to forget that in the moment.
The final section points to the final destination in the journey - paradise with God and the hope that it brings - that joy and majesty is what I tried to portray.
I really struggled to develop my initial ideas into one cohesive piece. In the end, I created a new project session, because the old one was just getting too cluttered for me to make heads or tails of it and rather than letting myself get carried away trying to generate various ideas that I thought were beautiful, I forced myself to stick to the brief of making it sound overall pastoral.
I think this piece was a success in the end. It's a bit less derivative than some of the other music I've recently written, one critique I'd give myself is that the sections do feel quite distinct and it might have been better if they sounded more related to each other or the transitions more gradual.
The Passover
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The Passover is a sort-of programmatic piece for unaccompanied choir. It portrays "The Passover" - an event described in Exodus 12:
Exodus 12:21-23 & 29-32
21 Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and take for yourselves lambs according to your families, and slay the Passover lamb. 22 You shall take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood which is in the basin, and apply some of the blood that is in the basin to the lintel and the two doorposts; and none of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning. 23 For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to come in to your houses to smite you.
29 Now it came about at midnight that the Lord struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of cattle. 30 Pharaoh arose in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was no home where there was not someone dead. 31 Then he called for Moses and Aaron at night and said, “Rise up, get out from among my people, both you and the sons of Israel; and go, worship the Lord, as you have said. 32 Take both your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and go, and bless me also."
It's a beautiful story that me reminds of God's Justice and Mercy, of His faithfulness to those who put their trust in him, and of my own 'Passover lamb' - Jesus, who's blood saves me from destruction.
I tried to portray through the dark minor tonality of the piece, the anguish of the Egyptians who endured God's judgement, the suffering of the Israelites at the hand of the Egyptians, and the people of both nations crying out for God's mercy. At the same time, I wanted to portray the faith that the Israelites had in God and the deliverance that He ultimately did give to His people, by ending the piece in the hopeful parallel major key.
I've always loved the human voice as an instrument, especially in the context of a choir. This was heightened when I discovered the music of Pavel Chesnokov and other Russian choral composers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Their music is incredibly emotionally expressive and they have a distinct sound to them - not only because of the incredible low bass singers they write for. Western choral music (from every century) tends to sound very pure and light and 'proper', much like the instrumental music of Mozart's day. 19th and 20th century Russian choral music by contrast, is much more like the instrumental music of the Late Romantic era - emotional, full of lush harmony, heavy, and even gritty at times.
All this is to say that I was primarily inspired by the music of Pavel Chesnokov and, more generally, by various other sacred choral pieces from Russia in the 19th and 20th centuries. I did also find inspiration in the piece "Agnus Dei" by Samuel Barber, though.
After receiving feedback that I should also try and draw from Jewish folk music, I found a beautiful Jewish folk song called "Oyfn Pripetchik". My understanding is that the song expresses the suffering, tears, heroism, and tribulations of endless wandering in exile of the Jewish people, through a picture of children crowded around their rabbi in a heated room, learning the wonders of the alphabet. The lyrics in the fourth stanza hint at the traditional Yiddish saying "The history of the Jews is written in tears".
I thought this deeper meaning, as well as the folk song's beautiful melody and harmony, was perfect for my piece and I incorporated a reference to it in the sections that say "re'eh ani misson'ai".
The text is the original Hebrew text of Psalm 9:13. In English it says:
Be gracious to me, Lord;
See my oppression from those who hate me,
You who lift me up from the gates of death
I thought this Psalm was perfect for the piece. Reading it, I can't help but wonder if David also thought of God's deliverance of the Jews out of Egypt as he was writing it?
One challenge in writing this piece was that not only do I not know Hebrew, but Biblical Hebrew is also slightly different from modern Hebrew, so I needed to do a fair bit of research and consult my Jewish friends before arriving at a justifiable pronunciation.
I really like this piece - it was so cool hearing it in rehearsals and I'd love to have it sung by a large choir someday.
- Oyfn Pripetshik -
Lazarus
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"Lazarus" is another programmatic piece that tells the story of the death and resurrection of Lazarus - which can be found in the book of John (see the program notes for the account of the story.)
This story is important to me not only because it shows that Jesus has power and authority over death and points to His own death and resurrection, but also because it shows that death is sad - even when you know you'll see them again. It's a very freeing truth that's shown by the fact that Jesus himself wept even though he was about to raise his friend from the dead.
Unlike in the written story, my piece doesn't start with Jesus and his disciples. Rather, it begins with Mary and Martha mourning the death of their brother Lazarus and then moves into Jesus arriving, mourning with them, and finally performing the miracle of raising Lazarus back to life.
With this piece, I was inspired by Romantic era music including ballet music and other program music of that time. Specific pieces that influenced the creation of "Lazarus" include: "Miserere" from Il Trovatore and "The Death of Åse" by Edvard Grieg.
This piece also has some Hebrew lyrics when the choir comes in. This time, the lyrics are from Psalm 88:18 - the final verse in the chapter. This Psalm is notable for being one of the only Psalms that doesn't end on a positive note. In English, it says: "You have removed lover and friend far from me; My acquaintances are in darkness."
I thought this worked well for portraying the people mourning Lazarus' death.
The most challenging part of writing this piece was going from the dark sad first half and smoothly transitioning into the joyful celebration of Lazarus' resurrection.
I incorporated a lot of brass and organ to set the sombre tone of the story, with fragile melodies floating over the top, played by violin, flute, and piano among other things.
For the final section/s in particular, I drew inspiration from romantic ballet music to capture that joy in a very 'classical' and 'musical' way.
Since last semester, I improved the orchestration - making use of a lot more woodwinds and percussion to thicken the sound and different instruments at different points to create more contrast.
Having had it played at SoundSpectrum 2024.2 already, I think the piece was a success. Maybe it was a bit too like ballet and Italian opera at times, but I think the end result is still effective at communicating the core idea and it is a different style from my other recital pieces.
Transvaal
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Transvaal is a piece inspired by my South African heritage.
The word Transvaal is the name of a historical province in South Africa which included among other things, Johannesburg, and Pretoria - the city where I was born.
I wanted to capture the vibrancy and majesty of this wild country. So as well has been quite joyful and fun, it’s also a little bit patriotic, romanticised, and nostalgic.
For the harmony, I drew inspiration from the Afrikaans folk song Sarie Marais, whereas for the rhythm, I drew inspiration from more traditional African drumming music.
I was also inspired by the sound of the Isicathamiya and Mbube genres (as popularised by the group Ladysmith Black Mambazo).
In this piece, I used a lot of syncopation and layered 'time signatures' - by which I mean that in certain instruments at certain places, I placed the emphasis so that the rhythmic phrase carries across the bar and gives the impression of a 3/4 or 5/8 over the primary 6/8 groove (without using tuplets). I also switched between 6/8 and 4/4 quite a bit throughout the piece, for no reason other than that felt right.
I somewhat underestimated the difficulty of the complex rhythms I had written, so when rehearsals came around, we had to spend a lot of time getting the rhythms right. I think it's worth it though, as the effect sounds really cool and lively.
I think this piece was successful in capturing my view of South Africa's aesthetic. The melody is surprisingly catchy and the rhythmic focus turned out well despite my tendencies against writing complex rhythm in my music. The only thing is, I think it could have had a more intentional and thought-through structure - as it is, it feels sort of like one 'random' thing after another (albeit very closely related things, so that it also feels like its all the same thing somehow).