something deeply hidden (2020) for orchestra

Recording: Oberlin Conservatory Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Raphael Jimenez

something deeply hidden was commissioned by and written for Thomas Heuser and the San Juan Symphony with the support of The Durango Herald Newspaper to honor Ludwig van Beethoven’s 250th Birthday. The title comes from a quote in Albert Einstein’s Autobiographical Notes: “…Something deeply hidden had to be behind things.” Music is a brief glimpse into our shared humanity, with all of its breathless beauty, all of its intense joy and deep sorrow, and all of its ugliness and violence too. In Beethoven’s work we get a glimpse of someone who felt especially deeply—a glimpse into a person whose passion and urgency and hope for what was possible in the world seemed to pour out of him like an endless fountain. One of my own first formative experiences with Classical music began with Beethoven, stumbling on to a dusty recording of his Fifth Symphony pulled from the discount bin of an electronics superstore that opened up a world of musical possibilities for me. In Beethoven’s Third Symphony, Eroica, the heroic opening often gives way to music of heartrending melancholy, most notably in the funeral march of the second movement, revealing a darker meaning beneath the bright surface. I see Albert Einstein’s pursuits in physics as related to Beethoven’s—a continual searching for something deeply hidden. For me, this piece is a parallel universe to Eroica—a musing that starts with some of the same musical material but takes it in a very different direction. The darker material of the funeral march opens the piece and is stretched and pulled, gradually revealing an even darker core that eventually churns and spins into light.

More information: https://davidbiedenbender.com/work/something-deeply-hidden/

something deeply hidden

Composer David Biedenbender’s music has been described as “simply beautiful” [twincities.com] and is noted for its “rhythmic intensity” [NewMusicBox] and “stirring harmonies” [Boston Classical Review]. “Modern, venturesome, and inexorable…The excitement, intensity, and freshness that characterizes Biedenbender’s music hung in the [air] long after the last note was played” [Examiner.com]. David has written music for the concert stage as well as for dance and multimedia collaborations, and his work is often influenced by his diverse musical experiences in rock and jazz bands as an electric bassist, in wind, jazz, and New Orleans-style brass bands as a euphonium, bass trombone, and tuba player, and by his study of Indian Carnatic Music. His present creative interests include working with everyone from classically trained musicians to improvisers, acoustic chamber music to large ensembles, and interactive electronic interfaces to live brain data. He has had the privilege of collaborating with and being commissioned by many talented performers and ensembles, including Alarm Will Sound, PRISM Saxophone Quartet, Stenhammar String Quartet, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, U.S. Navy Band, Philharmonie Baden-Baden (Germany), VocalEssence, and Eastman Wind Ensemble, among many others. 

He is currently Assistant Professor of Composition at Michigan State University. He holds degrees in composition from the University of Michigan and Central Michigan University, and has also studied at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, the Aspen Music Festival, and in Mysore, India where he studied carnatic music. For more information, visit: www.davidbiedenbender.com.

something deeply hidden

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