Guerrieri: O Bethlehem (2003), SATB chorus (PDF, 175 KB)

Advent starts this Sunday, which, for the non-Christians out there, is when even the devout start counting the shopping days left until Christmas (NOTE: good-hearted joke which eight years of Catholic grade school qualifies me to make). In celebration, here’s a Christmas anthem I wrote a few years back (tinny-sounding piano MIDI here) which has yet to get a public hearing—every year, I pencil it in, and every year, we run out of rehearsal time and I substitute something easy out of the Oxford Carols for Choirs book. This year, we’re doing it whether it’s properly rehearsed or not.

The impetus for this piece was Guerrieri’s Rule of Sacred Text Exigesis: always look up passages in context, since they’re usually weirder than you’d think. (This rule only applies to traditional mainstream religions; Dianetics, for example, is pretty much exactly as weird as you’d think.) Given all the slots to fill up in a lessons and carols service, I make it my mission to include at least one that isn’t all cheese-curd-smooth John Rutter-esque warm fuzzies. (If you’d rather not encourage me, Benjamin Britten’s “The Oxen” also fits this bill nicely.)

By the way, for the month, that brings the current score to Daniel Wolf, 29, me, 1. There’s still fourteen hours left, though.

Four Preludes (2007) (PDF, 261 KB)

A handful of amuses-doigts for the new month. The last one originally had a literary-referential title that I thought was pretty clever, but I found myself getting annoyed that I couldn’t come up with names for the other three, so I just dropped the appellation. (Why not just leave only one piece titled, you ask? I dunno.) Anybody who can guess what it was wins a free beer the next time they’re in Boston.

It’s Holy Week, the most important hebdomad in the Christian calendar. Since I’m a church musician, this means that my week has essentially been vacuumed up and pulverized into a fine, delicate powder. Music ministers may vary in piety and theological aptitude, but I’ll tell you this much: we all have an appreciation of Ordinary Time that far surpasses those in the pews. (Another church musician I know once referred to the day after Easter as “Good Monday.”)

I chalk this up as another occupational hazard—the fact that performing musicians don’t get to enjoy the experience the way audiences do. For example: if we wallow in the sadness of a sad piece, or the exultation of an exultant piece, it’s liable to distract us from the things we have to concentrate on in order to communicate that sadness or exultation to the listener. On the other hand, we get the intellectual and kinesthetic satisfaction of building the edifice, rather than just apprehending it. It’s more than a fair trade; but it means that we can’t share certain, crucial parts of the audience’s experience.

So like Christmas, I’ll have my Easter holiday sometime after everyone else’s is over. (I wonder if my synagogal counterparts have the same feelings about Passover or High Holy Days. “Why is this night different from every other night?” Because there’s no extra rehearsal.) Anyhow, to expiate my sin of blasphemous complaining, you can now download the rest of the Easter introit up there for free—for free—at the Choral Public Domain Library. It’s on its third go-round with my choir, and it’s unusual in that they actually like it. Wonders never cease.

Update: The CPDL link has gone dead, so here’s the score:

Guerrieri: Easter-Day (2005) (PDF, 2 pages, 115 Kb)

Guerrieri: Three Utopian Rags (PDF, 620 Kb)
1. The Model Factory
2. The Old Phalanstery
3. The Fellow Traveler

One of my New Year’s resolutions (for 2006, that is—never let it be said that I don’t procrastinate vigorously and enthusiastically) was to have my composer website up and running. No website yet, but at least I have a domain, so here’s a bit of ragtime to get things started. (Thanks to Mark Meyer for forcing the issue and providing technical help.)

Looking for a choral introit, cheap? The rest of the above (representing the last of my Advent composing and arranging obligations) is now available for free—for free—at the Choral Public Domain Library.

I have a fair pile of choral music that’s accumulated over the past few years, and every so often, I’ll send it off to publishers here and there, just to see the season’s new rejection letters. My favorite is from one of the local concerns, who were kind enough to tell me that their refusal to publish my music “was in no way a reflection on the quality of [my] work.” Really? How are you guys making your decisions over there—running hamsters through mazes? Darts? Haruspicy? Anyway, their loss is your gain. (If anybody uses it, let me know how your choir likes it. My choir did so much moaning and groaning over my Lenten introit last year that I’m currently trying to squeeze my budget enough to commission a new one from Dennis Báthory-Kitsz. Not free—but still a steal.)