All Night

I find the poetry of Gustaf Sobin (1935 – 2005) absolutely gripping. His use of language is rich, dense and sparse, all at the same time. I combined two of his poems to create All Night. My approach in this piecet was to write music that mirrors / shows what the poems are and what they do, rather than what they say; how the poems unfold and their underlying mood, and how their stanzas are laid out on the page. I believe that this kind of sonic compliment provides the best illumination of the poems, and heightens their layers of meaning and their fertile language.

The individual stanzas of Fugues: All Night the Neolithic (the first poem) all share a similar tone and visual format. Reflecting that, the music is cast as a set of variations so that there is a corresponding connection in the music. In between stanzas are unrelated music, using either phonemes that have no meaning, or, in between stanzas four and five, the separate poem Provençal Night. My intent was to set up musical contrasts and use formal elements that heighten the poetry and create an aural journey that is richer than just words or just abstract choral sound would provide on their own.