Details
- SATB soloists, Chamber Orch.
Program Notes
Out in the Dark / Silva myrtea is a “re-envisioning” of a Motet by Guilliame de Machaut, Inviolata genitrix. I have composed my piece based on one of the principle structural elements of the medieval motet, the technique of the simultaneous presentation of mixed but related texts; I have applied this idea using Machaut’s piece as a source.
I have incorporated direct quotes from Machaut in addition to my own music. As Machaut used one text as a cantus text, to which he added two additional related texts, I have used his texts in a somewhat analogous way (that is to say, in a fragmentary way), adding two additional texts, one by Ausonius and one by British poet Edward Thomas. The linking theme, as I read it, is a sense of fear, vulnerability, and mortality in the face of the infinite.