O Traurigkeit (2020 / rev. 2022)
by Adrian Foster

Adrian Foster, organ (recorded at the Sacré-Cœur-de-Jésus, Montréal)
Kimberley Lynch, voice

O Traurigkeit (2020/2022)

pop song for piano & electronics performed by conrad tao at new music on the point 2022

audio engineering: brian riordan
https://soundcloud.com/conradtao

pop song

a friend to sheep

Psalm 58 by Alex Van Sant with text from the Bible and by Fanny J. Crosby. Written for and premiered by Choral Chameleon at Choral Chameleon's 2025 Composers' Institute in New York City. Premiered at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Manhattan under the direction of Vince Peterson on June 27th 2025, and recorded June 28th 2025.

Text:
O you rulers, you devise injustice, you work wickedness, your hands deal out violence upon the earth. Break the teeth in their mouths, O God, let them be like the snail that melts into slime, let them vanish like water that flows away. Let the righteous wash their feet in the blood of the wicked. Then the people shall say: surely there is a God who judges the earth. No King but Christ our Lord!

Program Note:
Threats of divine punishment and damnation have long been wielded against queer people. My piece imagines how some of that threatening biblical language might instead express a queer perspective on authority and violence. The psalms of the Bible come from a place of desperation, they are powerful expressions of joy, pleading, rage. They are intimate conversations with God. I find them to be poignant and, at times, incisively accurate expressions of modern day struggle--in this case of a political nature. This piece uses an adaptation of Psalm 58, which speaks of snakes, stillborn children, melting snails, shattered teeth, lions, streams of blood (only some of which I include in my setting)—I find it theatrical and almost camp in its fantastical and hyperbolic imagery and absurd sadism. The phrase "No king but Christ our Lord", which I added to my adaptation of the psalm, comes from a hymn, with text by Fanny J. Crosby. This phrase has been used by a leftist school of thought called Christian Anarchism as a statement of loyalty to the teachings of Christ above all else (eschewing the authority of any party, state, ruler, army, nation, etc.). It is my hope that this piece can be an example of the theatrical, playful, and especially the mobilizing and liberatory potential of the biblical text and language especially as it relates to queerness and oppression at the hands of the state.

Psalm 58

New England-based composer, conductor, and vocalist. They/he.

Psalm 58

Alex Van Sant

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