Partita on Rhode Island

Duration: 8:00
Completed: December, 2003
Instrumentation: 2112/2210/2 Perc. / Strings

Program Notes

Partita on “Rhode Island” is a musical elaboration on a chorale tune, in much the same way that Johann Sebastian Bach or Max Reger would write compositions around chorale melodies. This partita proceeds episodically through different musical worlds and characters represented within the musical material itself and the so-called theological or philosophical intention of the chorale writer(s). “Rhode Island” comes from The Southern Harmony, a collection of American hymns published in 1854. The best qualities of these songs are their sincerity and ruggedness. Their worst quality is the deeply flawed craftsmanship, with which the musical material and poetic material was wrought. In writing this partita, I tried to give a more aesthetically ramified and more detailed compositional artifice to an anonymous 19th Century hymn writer who was able to write only part of what she or he meant.

Thou great mysterious God unknown
e’en from my infant days
My inmost soul expose to view
and tell me if I ever knew
Thy justifying grace.