Orchestral Music

Trio at I-Beam

Opening number for my Trio's gig at I-Beam last Friday. The whole night was really great music I think.

Chris Forbes - Piano
Hill Greene - Bass
Michael "TA" Thompson - Drums

Broken Images

A particularly screwed up version of the classic R n B song...My Dad was in the audience and he used to play this tune...so I dedicated it to him.

Chris Forbes - Piano
Hill Greene - Bass
Michael "TA" Thompson - Drums

Night Train

Ballad from July 27th 2013

Chris Forbes - Piano
Hill Greene - Bass
Michael "TA" Thompson - Drums

A - Wa - Re

The Traditional ending for all my trio gigs. This piece is based on Indonesian scales and at least I think it sounds like gamelan.

Chris Forbes - Piano
Hill Greene - Bass
Michael "TA" Thompson - Drums

The Morning Of The World

Romanza And Fugue For Strings

Ballade For Bassoon And Orchestra

Sonata For Cello And Piano

Symphony In One Movement Final Audio

Attempt to understand techniques of Morton Feldman

Kairos

A short orchestral fantasy based on a Gregorian Easter hymn.

Perfect curtain warmer

Fantasy On Ad Coenam Agni For Orchestra

One movement sonata for violin. Very virtuoso writing.

Sonata For Solo Violin Audio

A depiction of a Scottish celebration for the national saint's day, St. Andrew. All themes except the hymn tune St. Andrew are original but done in the style of traditional strathspeys, reels and jigs.

St. Andrew's Day Ceiligh

cello sonata no. 2 adagio.wav

Crystalline Structures 1.

Pastorale for Mixed Ensemble Audio

Fugue In G Minor For Piano

Settings of five of the seven O Antiphons for the last week of advent. Beginnings of a sixth

Flows from 2024-12-21 18-46-50_O Antiphons - Seven Introits for Advent Full

Ekpyrosis is an alternative theory to the prevailing Big Bang theory. Though it isn't the most accepted theory for the origin of our universe it is still held by many scientists and has not been disp[roved. It holds that, rather than infinitiely expanding, the universe will get to a point where the energy from it's initial explosion will disapate to the point where gravity will take over and the universe will contract until it contracts again to a single supercharged point, and then the cycle will resume. It solved the unanswered question of what happened before the Big Band in a rather elegant way. 

Ekpyrosis is basically a short one movement concerto for orchestra. It is inspired by late Stravinsky and Henri Duttileux most closely. The piece is based on 14 permutations of a single 12 note series which is treated rather freely, though more strictly than is my usual practice. There are many sections where strict serial order is kept, though there are also sections where the hexachord of the row are treated more like scales or modes. Throughout the piece the way the harmony "sounds" is particularly important to me. In other words keeping acoustical principles of wider intervals in the botom of chords, and as a result tonal centers are never far from audible. 

Ekpyrosis is a pretty big step forward for me as a composer. I have usually been pretty comfortably neoclassical as a composer. I love traditional forms from the baroque and classical periods and most of my work fits in those forms, though there are pieces that don't conform so readily. But I've never written anything as formally free as this piece. It is dominated by two motives, the incantory opening in the winds, which is inpired by the Symphonies of Wind Instruments and Metaboles, and the more langorous answering duets by first the clarinet and bass clarinet and then by the oboe and English Horn. All of the material in the piece is drawn from one or the other of these two motives. But thanks to the frequent permutations of the row, nothing is ever repeated exactly. Even the climactic recapitulation is harmonically very different, as the row is now quite transformed from it's original form. The result is a sort of phantasmagorical work in which partterns and note combinations are constantly splitting apart and recombining, rather like the universe. 

Ekpyrosis for Orchestra

1. Jesus Is Condemned to Death 3 - 30 - 25

Via Crucis - 2. Jesus Takes Up His Cross 4-04-25

Via Crucis - 3. Jesus Falls for the First Time 4/9/25

Via Crucis - 4. Jesus Meets His Mother 4/11/25

Via Crucis - -. Simon of Cyrene Helps Jesus Carry the Cross 4/25/25

Via Lucis - 1. First- Jesus is Raised From the Dead 4/23/25

Via Lucis - 3. The Risen Lord Appears to Mary Magdalene 5-10-25

Via Lucis - 7. Jesus Gives the Disciples Authority to Forgive Sins 5-22-25

Via Crucis Pt 2 - 10. Jesus Is Stripped of His Garments 06-29-25

Via Crucis Pt 2 - 11. Jesus is Nailed to the Cross 7 - 5 - 25

Via Crucis Pt 2 - 12. Jesus Dies on the Cross 7 - 08 - 2025

Via Crucis Pt 2 - 13. Jesus is Taken Down From the Cross 7 - 11 - 25

Via Crucis Pt 2 - 14. Jesus Is Laid in the Tomb 7 - 19 - 25

Via Crucis is a song cycle for Baritone and Organ based on an exquisite set of sonnets by poet Gerald Schwartz. The fourteen songs reflect each station of the cross and were begun as a lenten discipline, though they stretched out way past Lent in the composition. They would be wonderful as part of a Lenten concert program, though individual pieces could work in a liturgical setting as well. Ultimately they are meant to be performed together. They are modernist in style but not atonal except in passages. They are the reflection of two contemplative artists' vision of the cross. 

Via Crucis for Baritone and Organ (Complete Cycle)

Fisrt of three short atmospheric preludes for guitar solo

Three Preludes - 1. The Wind on Mars

Three Preludes - 2. Echos in the Canyon 7- 30 - 25

Three Preludes - 3. Dancing in the Dragon's Jaws 7 - 31 - 25

Petite Variations after Kurtag 8-5-25

Petite Variations (after Kurtag) Piano Version 8-8-25

Sonata in One Movement for Piano - 8-11-25

Cello Sonata inspired by late 19th century French chamber music and 20th century neo-classical material. Virtuoso cello part. Four Movements:
1. Allegro tranquillo
2. Andante grotescca
3. Adagio
4. Adagio - Allegro vivace

Christopher Gordon Forbes

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