Exigence, is the second piece in a series of one-movement symphonic works. The first work, Excursions, is longer and more motivically based. Exigence is written for a larger orchestral force and focuses upon broader gestures. Exigence furthers ideas that were first presented in Excursions, including wedge counterpoint and musical “Ex” or cross shapes created through voice crossings.
One of my main goals for the compositional materials of Exigence were that they would become completely “distilled” to the point of inevitability. The use of various linear fields of chromatic scales and their intervallic relationships with one another became my main source of “musical language or “motivic materials” for the piece.
This work is compositionally indebted to the work of Henry Cowell and John Luther Adams. I read Cowell’s “New Musical Resources” while writing Exigence which was to have a profound impact on its use of tone clusters and polyrhythms. Luther Adams’ symphonic work, Clouds of Forgetting, Clouds of Unknowing, was also used as a compositional model for my work along with inspiration from reading his book Winter Music.
The chromatic fields employed as “pure” musical material is antithetical to the popular notion of symphonic music based upon the use of motives. Rather than the development of motives, the focus is upon the sound of the orchestra as a whole and its sound mass. Each of the instrument’s lines add together to create these unique effects.
Exigence is dedicated to my grandfather, Edward L. Hart, who passed away during the creation of the work. He was a deeply religious man and the use of chimes throughout the work are related to his dedication to the Christian faith and the bells that I heard following his funeral. He was a wonderful poet and scholar and strongly encouraged the arts.