Instrumentation
fl.(=pic.), ob., 2 cl. (2/bcl.), 2 sax. (alt., ten.), bsn. – hn., tp., b. tbn. – glock., vib., timbales (14′, 15′), sus. cymb. (16′) – str. (1.1.1.1.1)
Duration
c. 10'
Premiered
December 2018, Royal College of Music, London
RCM New Perspectives Ensemble, under Timothy Lines
Orchestral score available for reference on UCLA eScholarship Contemporary Music Score Collection; preview score here
Parts available upon request
Programme note
My life closed twice before its close —
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
— Parting, by Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
Public domain
In the face of inevitable goodbyes, Dickinson’s words resound with weighty, mortal resignation. Yet beyond the pall of desolation there is a sliver of light— that ever so ineffable vision of transcendence, of which we can merely fathom with our temporal minds. In this piece, I allow Dickinson’s poem to fill my imagination as I give vent to that equivocal sense of anguish and yearning.