Resurrexit

For Orchestra

Commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony in celebration of Manfred Honeck’s 60th birthday.

Category: Popular, Symphonic

Duration 10 (minutes)

Program Notes

“Evocative, dusky and primordial, a certain cinematic quality permeating and contributing to the work’s narrative feel. “Ressurexit,” ever tuneful, makes use of Middle Eastern tonalities at times, lending the music an exotic tinge” – Pittsburgh post-Gazette

Composers from Bach to Mahler have set the Resurrection in large-scale choral settings, but the story has not been animated in the purely symphonic, kinetic form that attracted me. Resurrexit challenged me to consider a subject and soundworld I had never explored musically, a biblical narrative full of mystery and the supernatural.

The piece opens in darkness, with the dusty mystery of the Middle Eastern evoked by exotic modes and sonorities, as a throaty melody laments the death of Christ. The entrance of the beautiful Easter chant “Victimae Paschali Laudes” signals the first stirrings of life, conjured by trills, altar bells, and the remarkable Semantron (a large wooden plank hammered by huge mallets used by Byzantine monks as a call to prayer). Mystery turns into magic as the ‘re-animation’ is illustrated by quicksilver textures that whirl and flicker, building to exhilarating finale which features a soaring reprise of the Easter chant.

Instrumentation

3 Flutes (1st & 2nd Doubling Piccolo)
3 Oboes (3rd Doubling English H Orn)
3 Bb Clarinets (2nd Doubling Eb Clarinet & Bass Clarinet)
3 Bassoons (3rd Doubling Contrabassoon)
4 Horns In F
4 C Trumpets (1st Doubling Piccolo)
2 Trombones
Bass Trombone
Tuba
Percussion (3 Players)
Vibraphone, High Triangle, Glockenspiel, Nipple Gong (Tuned To Low A), Crotales, Tam-tam, Semantron*, Catholic Bell Tree**, 4 Suspended Cymbals (Very High To Medium), Tambourine, Castanets, Woodblock, Bass Drum, Crash Cymbals, Marimba, Church Bells Or Chimes
Timpani
Harp
Piano / Celesta Strings

* Catholic altar bells originated in the fifth Century when St. Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, introduced them as a means to summon monks to worship. Usually taking the four of four small bells, suspended on a cross of wood, altar bells can either be borrowed from a local church or ordered at a reasonable price online.

** The semantron, a long plank of wood suspended by ropes, is used in a variety of monasteries to summon monks to prayer at the start of a procession. The player can make a semantron by suspending a 1″x 6″ plank of wood, lengthwise (about 6-8 feet), from cables. The player hits the semantron with heavy wooden mallets, and the resulting sound should be resonant.