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The Fire Sermon (2024)

from Fragments from the Wasteland

for vocal sextet and electronics

Commission/Premiere Info: Premiered by HEX, CSUF New Music Ensemble and electronics on May 14, 2024 at Cal State Fullerton.

I was very intrigued by Fahad Siadat’s work The Moon Has Made Us Brothers based the Albert Giraud texts from Pierrot Lunaire-and took on the challenge to create a work of mine as counterpoint to the character in Pierrot Lunaire. I have done extended research, analysis on the work on the feminine voice and Erwartung, Schoenberg Second String quartet and voice, and had composed my string quartet O Mary, A Prayer for the year of the insane (2002) as a reaction/commentary to these works-and published papers/research on this project/topic. Arditti String Quartet premiered this work in Acanthes Festival, Avignon, France, and this work has also been performed by JACK, Ethel, and Lyris String Quartet. Originally this work was for a choir of voices (SATB) and to be performed by Neue Vokal Solisten in Europe. I still have the original vocal text, perhaps and it is the envoiced/revoicing of the string quartet, with vocal phonemes, syntax, grammar that drove the structure of this work.

I have re-envisioned this work for voice through collaboration with HEX as a direct commentary on Pierrot/Erwartung/Schoenberg and the voice of the woman—the counterpoint to Pierrot perhaps. And also, to counter the antisemitism implied in the T.S. Eliot poem through juxtaposition and layering of other texts. In this work from Fragments from the Wasteland: The Fire Sermon—I have set the text of T.S. Eliot’s modernist poem within the re-envisioning of the text from the poem A prayer for the year of the insane, by confessional late modernist poet Anne Sexton used to create my string quartet “O Mary”. I composed this work over two summers residency in 2001-2003 at Acanthes Festival, in Avignon Villeneuve, to awaken the birds in the decaying ruins of the Chartuese/monastery there—so many deep layers of meaning in this work. The work was also during my residency with Arditti string quartet, the premiere string quartet in the world at that time, who were extremely well-versed in extended techniques. I had just completed my PhD at UCSD with Professor, Brian Ferneyhough, with research on the influence of text on music for my final project: Settings of Anne Sexton for ensembles, voice, and electronics. I was then invited to be composer-in-residence, scholar, and researcher at Acanthes, Avignon, and at IRCAM (Institute for Research in Computers, Acoustics and Music, in Paris, France at Pompidou Center for two summers, working in the archives and studios there on “The Influence of Technology on Compositional Thought

I revised the work first as a reverse engineering of the string quartet techniques that had originally been generated by violinist Mark Menzies as techniques of text (consonants, phonemes) into extended techniques for strings—back into extended techniques for voice. Alas, this did not prove possible for HEX—since the work was too difficult given the short time to prepare the work for them to execute. I then analyzed the work and revised the score to a more graphic notated score—that removed the rhythms of the work, to create a more ambient field of inflected microtonal drones, with spoken text, and techniques for the voice derived from string techniques. These were the upper three voices of the Choir (SAT) and the lowest voice (Bass-Baritone). The two inner voices T2 and Baritone, would be paired to deliver the modal “chant” material layer—of melodic vocalization using the text of T.S. Eliot’s The Fire Sermon from The Wasteland. The lowest bass-baritone voice unfolds a longer drone—a cantus firmus line, driving the overall form of the work and interrupting occasional with outbursts of intensity. Embedded within this text setting is a section of dream-like floating material, setting the text from Anne Sexton’s poem A Prayer for the Year of the Insane. The text is not set directly—but a prayer as if one speaking or praying to oneself—in a floating, timeless texture. The overall form of the work follows the structure of a Fire and loosely the structure of a of a requiems mass for the dead- ( Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei) and loosely a large Sonata-Allegro form with introduction, Exposition, A, B, Development, Recap and Coda.

I. Initiation Ritual (Chang-Unreal City) Kyrie Exposition
II. Ignite (Fragments-The river’s tent is broken) Gloria
III. Proliferate (Prayer-O Mary)/Credo Development
IV. The Fire Sermon (spoken voice)/Sanctus Recapitulation
V. Spread/Explosive (tutti/Recap of texts), Benedictus Coda
VI. Ashes/Burning Fragments, Agnus Dei

The metaphor for the structure of the orchestration and process of the work comes from the stages of Fire. As one who lives on the edge of extreme dangerous Fire Zone on the edge of a Wilderness Area in California-a Fire Tetrahedron. A tetrahedron can be described as a pyramid which is a solid having four plane faces. Essentially all four elements must be present for fire to occur, fuel, heat, oxygen, and a chemical chain reaction. Removal of any one of these essential elements will result in the fire being extinguished This further metaphor is taken to the orchestration and layers of the work: Fuel, violin, soprano , Heat, violin, alto, Chemical chain reaction, viola, tenor, Oxygen, cello, bass.

O Mary is based on the text translation of a poem by Anne Sexton into a microtonally-inflected complex language for strings. Composed for the Arditti Quartet, this work was written for the Acanthes Festival, Avignon-Villeneuve, France, and the space where it was premiered - the ancient ruins of the 6th Century Chartreuse Monastery across the bridge from Avignon, near the Papal Palace founded by Pope Innocent VI in 1356. Having been in residence in Avignon (Messiaen’s birthplace) the previous summer, I noticed that birds would swoop into the open ruins of Chartreuse during concerts when certain pitches, intensities, harmonies were evoked. I composed this work in homage to those birds, to Messiaen, and to the human tragedies this ancient space witnessed -- and sure enough, during the premiere performance the bird swooped down and began to cry. The amplified version of this work was premiered by Ethel (2005) and complete revised version by JACK Quartet (2011), and performance by Lyris Quartet at Hear Now Festival (2018) - Pamela Madsen. A mix of the JACK and Arditti recordings is used for the backing track of this new work. The field recordings of water, wind, and birds for the opening section of the work were made in the depths of Cleveland National Forest and Silverado Canyon in April and May of 2024, after rains, to collect sounds and images of rushing streams, the sound of air through trees, and capture the ambience of lush green nature in full bloom. I will return to the canyons later this season at the height of the Santa Ana Winds, to witness the devastation of this environment turned to a wasteland,—during the annual fire season. I will document this change, with images and field recordings for use in the final section of Fragments from the Wasteland: The Fire Sermon.

November 7, 2024 | Bent Frequency at San Jose State University, CA
November 6, 2024 | Bent Frequency in Meng Concert Hall, Cal State Fullerton

To purchase the scores and parts, email Pamela Madsen directly at pmadsen@fullerton.edu.

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