- By Singing Light (1989, 2001) chamber orchestra 10'
- 1, picc, 1, Eh, 1, bcl, 1 2, 1, 1 T, 1 perc hp cel strings
- Premiere—1990, by the Glacier Orchestra conducted by Gordon Johnson, Kalispell, MT.
Program Notes
By Singing Light is an orchestral setting of "In my craft or sullen art," Dylan Thomas's poem about illumination and creative process. The poem's sixth line, "I labour by singing light," suggested a title. This poem, its speaker spinning moonlight into songs for a beloved and wholly indifferent audience, sat on my work table throughout my last autumn in Montana, 1988. I composed By Singing Light that year in commemoration of the Montana Centennial, and as a kind of farewell. What I recall most vividly from that fall is the quality of the light: a brilliant moon, toward full, high in the October sky.
By Singing Light was first performed by the Glacier Orchestra conducted by Gordon Johnson in 1990, but I was dissatisfied with the work as a whole, and withheld it. Revision at a ten-year remove is a tricky process. Like a physician, the composer secretly hopes for a brilliant cure, but he is at least obligated to do no harm. In this case, the patient's head and feet were sound enough; the torso needed surgery. It was premiered in revised form by the Billings Symphony conducted by Uri Barnea in March, 2001.
The work is in three-part form, with a middle section in quicker tempo. Moonlight descends in the guise of a falling woodwind figure. Low, vibrant strings respond, first with effort, then more impassioned, with an ascending line, which is taken over by the brass and urged to a series of climaxes. Over quicker drum rhythms, the flute introduces a new theme, which is woven into elaborate braids, while the strings muster underneath. The culmination, a sustained, luminous tutti, leads to that high country where moonlight ever spills from glistening instruments, and woodwinds harmonize over a long pedal point.