Light Fragments (2018)

for baritone and chamber orchestra [2(2=picc).2.1.1 - 2.1.1.0. - 2perc* - pno - strings]

text: excerpts from Light Light, by Julie Joosten

Duration: 17'

Premiered: April 22, 2018 @ Church of the Holy Trinity, Toronto ON  

Liam Ritz (conductor), Korin Thomas-Smith (baritone)

Programme Note:

I. the light with night coming on

II. a filament of light

III. blind spot

IV. light laments

V. the light losing our words

Light Fragments is a five-movement song cycle for baritone and chamber ensemble, using poetry from Julie Joosten’s 2013 book Light Light. The text is taken from a chapter also titled Light Fragments, which explores light as a means of personifying the experiences and emotions of our world and collective lives. Light Fragments was originally composed as chamber piece for the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra as part of their 2017 What Next Festival, and was later adapted for full orchestra in 2018.

The first song, the light with night coming on, compares the ephemeral quality of a life to a storm. It balances the bright lightening and dark rumbling thunder as it approaches from the distance and then passes over as elusively as it arrived.

The second song, a filament of light, is a tantalizing dissection of photosynthesis. The sole character of the movement comes from the single line “[…] an energetic discordance of vibrating cells”, inciting a constant murmur and tremor of energy throughout the entire movement.

The third song, blind spot, contains no text other than the title. It is a commentary on all the things in our life that create “blind spots”, whether it is the lightless point of our retinas where the optic nerve enters, or gaps in our self-awareness as a society, or simply the visible obstructions that plague our driving.

The poem for the fourth song, light laments, was described to me by Joosten as the juxtaposition of the renaissance lament form with interjections of contemporary language from our time. Influenced by Joosten’s approach to this form, I chose to mirror her process by basing my musical language on simple and traditional harmonies, while simultaneously blurring the boundaries to create a seemingly suspended musical landscape.

The fifth and final song, the light losing our words, returns to the similar ephemeral notions of the first poem, however with a new sense of warmth and hope. It recounts a long forgotten landscape, washed away by time, existing as only a fond memory.

*Percussion Instrumentation (* = shared instruments)

I = Crotales (2-octave), Suspended Cymbal*, Medium Woodblock, Tam-Tam*, Triangle, Tambourine, Whip, Anvil

II = Vibraphone, Bass Drum, Suspended Cymbal*, Tam-Tam*