• Instrumentation: 2.2.2.2 - 4.2.2.1 - timp, str

• Duration: 6'

Program Note

Completed in 2011 in Hyde Park, Massachusetts, this piece was my first work for orchestra.  It was another stop on a long trail that I had laid, plotting my way from the choir stalls to the opera stage, with a developing catalog of instrumental works in between. 

Writing a straightforward piece in contrasting sections proved more difficult than I'd imagined. Only when I relied upon the tried and true prelude and fugue format from my church days, did the piece coalesce. This is also the first work (and to date, only) that utilizes the tone row I developed while at school. Its appearance in the opening string chorale is organically spun into wind and brass solos that emerge. The powerful tutti that ends the prelude supports a new melody that returns as a counter melody in the fugue.  While not strictly dodecaphonic, the muscular fugue exhibits a high level of fluid chromaticism common in my instrumental works.