Song of Isaiah

Year: 2002

For: soprano and 10 musicians

First Performance:
20 April 2002
Milwaukee Art Museum
Present Music/ Michael Torke

Instrumentation: 0.0.2(II=bcl).0—0.0.0.0—perc(2):vib/tamb/claves/tgl—pft—1.1.1.1.1

Duration: 14'

Press:
It's a walk in the park on a perfect day. It's happy, smart music that is utterly without irony. —Tom Strini, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Program Notes:
Song of Isaiah was commissioned for Present Music's 20th anniversary, and to honor the Archbishop Rembert Weakland. In addition to the singer, the piece is scored for a clarinet, bass clarinet, string quintet, piano, vibraphone, and a percussionist who plays the rhythmic underpinning with a tambourine, claves, and in the center of the piece, a triangle. This spirited rhythm embodies slower embedded forms that are etched out melodically by the clarinets in octaves, and also by the strings and piano in octaves. These melodies are built up until they encompass the totality of the rhythm being tapped away, which articulates a kind of small musical confirmation. I am content to consider these "confirmations" the extent to which I build to a climax. In essence, there are no climaxes, as I wish the music to be a meditation, though the feeling is quite lively. Nine sections of the piece serve as episodic variations, and explore different small chunks of text from the Book of Isaiah. The form is a mirror: the first and ninth sections relate, as do the second and eighth, and so on; the fifth section (using the triangle) is in the exact center. The singer, riding on the top of these evolving melodies, sings the following words.

Part 1
For you shall go out with joy,
And be led out with peace;
The mountains and the hills
Shall break forth into singing before you,
And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Refrain 1:
Forever. All flesh is grass.
And all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of our God stands forever.

Part 2
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

Refrain 2:
Because the breath of the Lord blows upon it.

Part 3
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
Refrain 1

Part 4
Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Refrain 2

Part 5
For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven,
And do not return there,
But water the earth,
And make it bring forth and bud
Forever.

Part 6
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Refrain 2

Part 7
Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the Lord?s renown,
for an everlasting sign,
which will not be destroyed.
Refrain 1

Part 8
The burning sand will become a pool,
the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
Refrain 2

Part 9 (1)
For you shall go out with joy,
And be led out with peace;
The mountains and the hills
Shall break forth into singing before you,
And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Refrain 1

(Book of Isaiah, 35: 5-7, 40: 6-8, 40: 31, 55: 10, 55: 12-13)

I have always considered that a central religious experience is one of uplifting joy, as opposed to other spiritual expressions of pleading, suffering, atonement, or wrath. It is that state of joy and thanksgiving I am trying to express.