Transience (2021)
Instrumentation: string sextet
Duration: ca. 15'
First performed: October 18th, 2021 by students of The Juilliard School at Paul Hall (New York, NY)
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I. Death
II. Heaven
III. Judgement
IIII. Hell
Program Note
The work’s inspiration stems from the concept of the “four last things” experienced by the soul at the moment of death and the afterlife. This term in Christian theology dates back to the Middle Ages and earlier.
The order of these four stages, as well as their proportions, were designed with the intention of providing a dramatic through-line to the work. An extremely short, fleeting depiction of Death is followed by an extended meditation on Heaven and the idea of religious ecstasy, of the mind removed “from its normal place of function”. Judgement and Hell bring the music to a severe close.
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