Sonnets and Psalm

Abstract

Sonnets and Psalm investigates the relationships between the sacred nature of Psalm 91 and the secular nature of two sonnets, William Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey's Sonnet 8. Sonnets and Psalm exploits a dynamic that arises from the juxtaposition of disparate musical universes, choral and instrumental, and the unique and, at times, ineffable aesthetic qualities that emerge as a result of the intentional ordering of musical language and block structures. In a five movement form the listener is guided from vocal events painted on orchestral palettes, to solely instrumental movements, and back again. While the movements can stand independently of each other, there are ponderous transformations of material within and throughout the piece that create a thread that functions as a consistent generative unifying element. A recurrent utilization of motive, color, register, pitch-specific sonorities and gesture, enhances the unity of the work while exploiting the contradistinctive nature of each movement. Relational aspects of hidden and transformed materials from the Psalm and the sonnets (including the Mosaic movements) that are present throughout create a forward and back-relating dynamic. There is a programmatic element at work as well that in itself is a statement: after the sonnets and the mosaics, the listener is finally presented with the Psalm, a conclusion.