Rectangle Zero

Enigma (2024) for wind ensemble with optional organ

performed by the Michigan State University Wind Symphony, Michael Gabriel, conductor

Enigma was originally written for brass choir and organ for the dedication of the Red Cedar Organ in the Michigan State University Alumni Chapel. This version was created for my friend Henry Dorn and the St. Olaf Band. It was awarded the 2024 National Band Association William D. Revelli Memorial Prize.


Enigma comes from a Greek word that means “to speak in riddles,” and in this piece, the riddle—or theme—is revealed gradually. The theme comes from the Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor by Johann Sebastian Bach, which is one of my favorite pieces of music, and, once the theme is revealed, it is repeated cyclically with 21 variations, just like in Bach’s original. This piece is dedicated to my former teacher, José-Luis Maúrtua, a composer, theorist, conductor, and teacher with whom I studied at Central Michigan University. José-Luis was an extraordinary musician and teacher who was tirelessly dedicated to his students and to pushing them to do their best. I am forever grateful for the lessons I learned from him, and my music and my life are far better for having known him. Unfortunately, he was taken from this earth far too young—at the age of 57—by pancreatic cancer in the spring of 2022. I miss him dearly, and this music is for him.

For more information: https://davidbiedenbender.com/work/enigma-2/

Enigma

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/

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