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The piece - Excerpt #1 by Thomas Chevis
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The musicking/happening/event - Composing
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What’s the story or mood?
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- The lyrics, written in the first person, are more suggestive than explicit – switching between tormented outcries and prayers that seem to come from a place of exhaustion. It all indicates that they are the inner thoughts and cries of a person suffering from bad mental health.
- The main structure follows this switching, being therefore a form of oscillation, with angsty, minor, fragmented, tortuous content in a tight range alternating with calm, major, homophonic, hopeful content in a bigger, more sonorous range.
- The title, Excerpts #1, along with various ellipses in the text, suggests there is more text that has been omitted, and thus these words have been selected specifically for the purpose of this composition.
- There is a rather oblique musical reference right at the end of the piece to the hymn “Oh God beyond all praising” which might fly under the radar to those not familiar with the lyric “to rise and bless you still” which also appears here. This is a clue that the parent-child relationship which is inferred from the text is in fact the narrator’s relationship with God rather than a human parent. (If it were the latter, the text could imply a very different, much darker, meaning.)
- There are two alternating moods that are quite stark, but are perhaps connected by the idea of hope. One seems to lack all hope, the other seems to cling desperately to a sliver of hope. So the general mood is neither entirely hopeful nor hopeless, but is to do with hope.
- In its subject matter and musical style, the piece is clearly not meant for entertainment but rather to challenge and to disturb and provoke, and yet not in a gratuitous fashion.
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- Ted Turnau’s talks at Word Alive 2018 inspired me to try write a choral piece that was subversive but hopeful – ‘a cultural oasis’ – which would commend the gospel without being explicitly evangelistic.
- The atmosphere was often a little tense, even though the act of composition is a solo activity – mainly because of the subject matter of the text, and because of the need to wrestle it into a musical form to which it is unaccustomed!
- It happened mainly at the piano in our home.
- My motive is to shock choral singers and appreciators slightly and to make them (1) consider their art-form and its norms, and (2) think about the issue of mental health from a new angle.
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What’s the context – what world are we in?
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- This is an a cappella choral piece for five vocal parts – SAATB – and the style is a modern mix of angular and homophonic, the latter recalling Tavener-esque minimalism; no particular conventions therefore.
- Generally in a cappella choral music, the expectation is that there will be interest in all parts at some point, especially the higher vocal parts of soprano and tenor.
- In modern a cappella choral music, there has been a lot of emphasis on harmonic interest, with pandiatonicism particularly in vogue (think Eric Whitacre) at the moment.
- In terms of texts, choral music tends to be extremely conventional, using Scripture and other sacred texts, often (but not always) in Latin. Otherwise, the texts chosen tend to be poetry, nearly always on subjects to do with beauty or nature or time or nostalgia or other such subjects that aren’t particularly disturbing.
- To be a little blunt (and perhaps cynical), this is a world of privilege and comfort, as some of my comments in the right hand column here will show.
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- The context of composition is a very intimate and personal context. The composer is really wrestling with the text and then the music to make it all work together into an integrated whole. Moreover, as a solo activity, there aren’t really social conventions, per se, with the act of composition; but its intended result - a choral performance - does have certain social conventions.
- Normally, choral performances (especially those that aren’t in a “sacred” context such as a church service, and which involve a smaller chamber choir, as opposed to a large choir or chorus) are usually framed as an intimate thing, usually taking place either in sacred spaces like churches, or otherwise smaller concert hall venues. In these spaces, the expectation is that the choir is made up of respected and admired singers, with the conductor given special honour, and the audience by and large tend to be educated, middle or upper class. The cost of such concerts tends to be not-insignificant, prohibitive to those struggling financially. There will usually be programme notes provided, though sometimes at an extra cost.
- The choir and conductor would typically be dressed smartly and conduct themselves gracefully in terms of their movements and any gestures. They would stand to sing, often in a small semi-circle of one or more lines, depending on numbers.
- The conductor may say a word or two about the pieces, but generally such information is left to the programme notes. Often they’ll say very little to the audience.
- The audience would be expected to be silent throughout the performances, to clap after each piece (but not between movements of the same piece) or just at the end if instructed in the programme notes, and the clapping would be enthusiastic but not raucous. There might be shouts of ‘bravo’ from more extravert members of the audience.
- Beauty and excellence seem to be the things most celebrated in chamber choir performances. The beauty of the sound and the technical excellence of the singing take great precedence over everything else, such as visual impact or whether the music’s sung off by heart, or whether the actual repertoire is varied or interesting or of any relevance content-wise to everyday life.
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What is true and good here?
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- The piece attempts to portray the brokenness and confusion and crisis of bad mental health, which is a result of the Fall. It also attempts to offset this by locating the source of contentment in “you”, which a careful reading of the text shows to be the God of the Bible who is the source of life, the One who is sovereign and who cares.
- By setting the former matter with angular fragmented textures and dissonant harmonies, and the latter with sonorous homophonic textures and consonant harmonies, the contrast created suggests a truthful depiction, whereby brokenness is not celebrated, but is in fact mourned, and contentment in God is rightly depicted as a source of relief and comfort, and ultimately restoration and hope.
- An interesting moment comes with the words “so dependent” – in the context of the text, the author appears to have written them with connotations of negativity – i.e. it is a bad thing that they are “so dependent”. However, musically they have been set within the harmonic sound world of the “angular” sections – i.e. rather dissonant – but with the textures of the “sonorous” sections – i.e. homophonic. The result is that the connotations of negativity are somewhat subverted so that musically it is suggested that perhaps being “so dependent” isn’t such a bad thing after all, which of course aligns with the truth of the gospel.
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- In the act of composition, the wrestling with “raw materials” of notes and crafting and shaping them into a discernible and integrated order is something good that reflects the creativity of God.
- The sequence of frustration-relief/joy/satisfaction which is found in the composition process (wrestling with getting the notes into the right order, and even with computer software to insert them in quickly and efficiently, followed by the satisfaction of a finished piece) reflects the pattern of our Christian walk of suffering in this life before the joy of eternal life.
- Also, the entire context of a chamber choir performance as described above definitely celebrates goodness and beauty. Many experience great joy, or other emotions such as solace, at such music.
- This sense of hope that there is goodness and beauty in this broken world points forwards to the new creation.
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What is deceitful? What offers salvation in the place of God?
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- Hopefully the answer here is nothing given that I have made a concerted effort to craft a piece that is faithful to the gospel!
- I suppose a shallow reading of the piece could make someone think it was justifying or even glamorising despair, particularly in the opening words “there is no happiness here”. In one sense these words are patently untrue, for God has made a good world in which we were placed to thrive; but the words are true insofar as they did accurately convey the emotions of despair felt by the author in that moment. The fact that the piece does not end here with these words (or indeed with any of the words of despair) hopefully mitigate against such misunderstanding.
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- The very nature of composing tempts one to seek glory for oneself; after all, you are engaging in a supremely God-like activity, of creating, bringing order out of disorder, to produce something good or beautiful or interesting which you hope people will enjoy and appreciate and which will make their lives better. Inevitably it is hard to compose without thinking about the appreciation that people will communicate to you, and that quickly escalates into glory being bestowed on you (if it’s any good, of course!)
- Similarly, the solo nature of composition can be deceitful in that it magnifies the image of the solo genius, dependent on nobody else. This of course is rubbish, since all composers are heavily dependent on (1) their predecessors for inspiration, (2) their teachers for guidance and improvement, (3) fellow musicians to perform their pieces, and (4) audiences to listen to (and preferably pay for) their music.
- The “solo genius” idea can lead to composers neglecting social duties or responsibilities (e.g. loving their spouses, doing their domestic responsibilities, etc etc) which can get excused because of their need to compose whilst “in the zone”, or something similar.
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How does the Gospel apply here?
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- The great story of God’s salvation plan means that it is in fact unfaithful to the gospel to minimise or hide sin and brokenness. Not only is it factually untrue, but it also ends up diminishing the sheer magnitude and thus magnificence of God’s mercy and salvation.
- Thus it is important to be real about brokenness; too often in classical music, and perhaps especially in choral music, this has not been the case.
- The scope of the gospel also means that not only do we need our rebellion to be dealt with as perpetrators of sin, whereby we are justified before God, we also need our wounds as victims of sin to be healed, giving great relief and comfort in the present. This is another way in which this piece seeks to embody the gospel.
- Finally, the gospel story doesn’t finish in this creation, but points forward with certain hope to a perfect new creation. Whilst this piece does not explicitly reference the new creation, its bold confrontation with the reality of the pain of this life alongside the simultaneous desire for contentment and rest and relief does point forward to a time and place where “there will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the old order of things [will have] passed away.”
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- I think composition is a gift that God has given me, in which case one response to my salvation is to compose “to the glory of God” – to obey the Great Commandment in my composition – to steward this gift in obedience to God’s words on the necessity of stewarding gifts effectively and productively.
- This particular piece was a special effort to do this in a way that would reflect the gospel by drawing on a real-life and thus relevant aspect of brokenness in our world today but trying to show that there is hope, even whilst not wanting to diminish the severity and magnitude of the pain of that brokenness. Hopefully this reflects some measure of increased maturity in my faith!
- The Gospel reminds me that I am not independent, but highly dependent, and most particularly upon God Himself. It reminds me that I am neither the ultimate Creator nor the Saviour, but that Jesus is, and that therefore all the glory should go to Him and Him alone.
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