Soundings from the Heart’s Chambers is intended to be a hopeful and uplifting listening experience. The impact of the pandemic of the past two-plus years in combination with heightened political unrest and other simultaneous crises across the globe has challenged our expectations and worn down our spirits. With this in mind, I chose to respond to the Lowell Chamber Orchestra’s 2022 call for scores with a work intended to inspire hope and lift our spirits.  

Within its compact 9.5-minute time frame, this suite progresses through four brief movements: Hope, Waves of Doubt, Garnering Trust, and A Leap of Faith. To musically signal renewed hope, the opening measures of the first movement return in the final movement after this work’s climactic musical depiction of a leap of faith forward. The middle two movements of the work aim to convey progress back to a renewed state of hope and trust. 

The second movement’s lumbering two-layered bass line is anchored around E. The upper instrumental voices ebb and flow in a repeating musical gesture tethered to the bass and never escape the harmonic pull of E (as if immobilized in doubt). This movement ends with a rhythmically tenuous cadence on E minor further signifying the experience of doubt. The third movement gradually unfolds into a brighter mood and arrives at a strong confident final cadence on C major which sets up the final movement’s expressive sonic gesture of a leap of faith.

The audio here is produced with NotePerformer from my Sibelius score writing program.

Soundings from the Heart's Chambers

This is a recording of Yuki Yasuda performing this modern work for 13-string koto.  Ms. Yasuda premiered this work in 2011 on a concert program titled "Soundings on Ancient Strings" at the New England Conservatory's Pierce Hall.

Music for Japanese Instruments

Ballade for 13-string koto

The audio here is generated with NotePerformers3 software from a Sibelius score.

These three musical images were inspired by the New England autumn countryside. To create a context for hearing the music, I fashioned a haiku with particular suggestive imagery. The title for each of the three movements is a line from the haiku:

movement 1. (largo)  . . . .  Fall leaves, dawn unfolds 
movement 2. (andante) . .  Wings resound as flocks take flight 
movement 3. (allegro) . . .  Leaves like confetti

This work features the piano as a solo instrument. However, unlike a traditional concerto, the piano and the chamber string orchestra with the harp function like complimentary palettes of sound color. Together they render a sonic painting that unfolds in the patterned musical gestures, shifting rhythms, and vague implied melodic fragments that evolve into fuller themes. 

The score and parts are distributed through Universal Edition: https://www.universaledition.com/martin-schreiner-8247

– M. M. S.

Autumn Vistas - for piano, harp and string orchestra

Selected to be published in the Vibraphone Project's Centennial Compendium of scores in early 2023, this is a computer generated performance.

A streaming version of this work with an accompanying image montage to help convey more vividly the story of this music is found on my YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y372ReVfhY0

I composed this work as an expression of deep concern for our planet and its people in the midst of the global warming impacts unfolding before our eyes. One local example of the devastating and rapidly unfolding impact of global warming is Indonesia and its capital Jakarta. So severe are the city’s infrastructure and health problems and so quickly is Jakarta sinking below sea level, the Indonesia government is in the process of moving its capital from the island of Java to the island of Borneo in a yet-to-be built city named Kalimantan. 

Jakarta has recently been identified as the fastest sinking city in the world due to the disastrous combination of depleting ground water from the aquifer beneath the city and global sea level rise due to global warming. With the growing urgent problem of supplying enough potable water to the city, the aquifer beneath the city is being over used and causing land of the northern area of Jakarta to sink below sea level. With the world’s rising sea levels compounding the problem and no coordinated effort to address solutions for these problems, parts this city could be completely submerged by the year 2050. 

It is with this image in mind of Jakarta sinking that I composed this music. The vibraphone has instrumental cousins in the metal xylophones of the Javanese gamelan orchestra and I take advantage of this in suggesting gamelan-like music at moments in this composition. The vibraphone’s fan vibrato is used sparingly for strategic moments to suggest a feeling of watery emersion. The over-all tessitura of the piece descends from its beginning through to a climatic cadence on a closely packed aggregate of pitches suggesting an F minor/major ninth chord (F, G, A-flat, C) on the lowest bars of the vibraphone. After this doleful sunken cadence, a coda softly rises from the depths of this cadential chord to convey a sense of hope.

My Heart With Jakarta Sinks In Rising Seas

Introduction & first two movements of a Five movement work: Intro; I. Harbor Boats, Waves Lapping; Interlude; II. Quiet Pond, Gentle Rain. 

Premiered on “Evening of Shakuhachi and Koto Music” concert series with Marco Lienhard, shakuhachi; Ryuko Mizutani, koto presented in Gasson Hall, Boston College on May 15, 2005

The score is available from J. W. Pepper Music: https://www.jwpepper.com/Water-Music/10488326.item

Water Music - mvts I II

With the upcoming U. S. Memorial Day observance, my posting here is a musical meditation in remembrance of all those who gave their lives in wartime service.

Additionally, this posting is in remembrance of so many civilians around the world who have perished in war.

This brief duo for clarinet and cello grew from personal reflection of the tragedy of the Vietnam War. I served as a U. S. Army bandsman-clarinetist with the 19th Army Band at Fort Dix, New Jersey and with the 3rd Infantry Division Band in Germany. I composed the first version of this work for solo clarinet in the year following my discharge.

Fifty years later, after decades of more wars and armed conflicts beyond the Vietnam era, I am still trimming and shaping my tiny personal "Meditation in Time of War" which has evolved into a duo for clarinet and cello.

A Meditation In Time Of War, 1973 - ????

A SATB choral setting of the closing lines to Abraham Lincoln's 1861 inaugural address where he appeals to "the better angels of our nature"

Closing lines to Lincoln's address:
"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

Voices are generated by Note Performer3 software from a Sibelius Score.

The score is available for perusal and purchase through Universal Edition: https://www.universaledition.com/martin-schreiner-8247/works/lincoln-s-angels-35854

Lincoln's Angels

This duo was written for the “Afternoon of Shakuhachi and Koto Music” series directed by composer Takashi Koto and presented in the Boston area from 1994 through 2012. The performers heard in this recording of the premiere in September 2008 were Marco Lienhard, shakuhachi and Ryuko Mizutani, koto (an exceptional and generous musician/composer of the Suwai School of koto performance who tragically died in December 2008 at age 44).

Bamboo & Silk Tango (for shakuhachi and koto)

I composed this string quartet as an expression of our struggle toward achieving the ideal of human dignity for all and as an offering of hope in continued progress toward this goal. 

In 1948 the fledgling United Nations' General Assembly passed a resolution of a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The preamble of this declaration begins: "Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, . . ." Consensus on the principles and articles of this declaration is the first time in history that so many nations (with great diversity of legal systems, beliefs and cultures of the world) came together to articulate common basic ideals of individual rights, dignity and the value of individual human beings.

This string quartet emerged from my reflections on the inspired idealism in the gesture of this declaration and the enormity of the struggles to bring these ideals closer to reality. With the title providing a contextual frame for listening, the music of the quartet coveys searching, struggling, persevering, losing direction and coming together in moments of progress and hope.

The audio in this video is produced from NotePerformer software.

The score and parts are available through Universal Edition: https://www.universaledition.com/martin-schreiner-8247/works/in-pursuit-of-human-dignity-36781

In Pursuit of Human Dignity

Presenting ICARUS, my composition for two percussionists. It is a sound painting of the ancient Greek myth of Icarus' fatal flight too near to the Sun. Percussionist ONE: 2 bongos, 4 tom-toms, bass drum, tam-tam, hand clapping. Percussionist TWO: glockenspiel, marimba, vibraphone, tam-tam.

The music audio performance is generated from NotePerformer3 software. 

The score is available through J. W. Pepper Music where you can also peruse the score online: https://www.jwpepper.com/11557825.item 

The music is © copyright, 2024 Martin Max Schreiner (BMI)

Icarus

This is a 13-minute, three movement concertino (Vivace, Andante, Maestoso) for E-flat piccolo trumpet with timpani and strings (4, 3, 3, 2, 2). As the subtitle indicates, the mood of the music reflects a general sense of the human condition across the three movements: 
movement One "NOW: In a Fleeting Moment," (Vivace)
movement Two "THEN: We Must Never Forget (in memoriam)," (Andante)
movement three "AHEAD: A Climb Into a Hopeful Future." (Maestoso)

The score and parts are distributed through Universal Edition: https://www.universaledition.com/en/Works/Konzertino-fuer-Trompete-in-E-Flat-Timpani-und-Saiten/P0267094.

Concertino For Trumpet: "3 Meditations on the Human Condition"

Four Preludes for piano

Written for harpist Helen Lawlor of Dundalk, Ireland. This piece is for the modern lever harp. The recording here is from a MIDI file.

Day In The Life of a Chough for Celtic harp

Recorded by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra with Robert Black conducting. Originally released in 1992 on the MMC Recordings label (defunct).

Symphonic Journey - Fantasy. Dedicated to my wife Lynn Matis.

Symphonic Journey, Fantasy (mvt. 2)

Recorded by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra with Robert Black conducting. Originally released in 1992 on the MMC Recordings label (defunct).

Symphonic Journey - Prelude (Dawn and Mist). Dedicated to my wife Lynn Matis.

Symphonic Journey. Prelude (mvt. 1)

My Nocturne was written in 1988. The performance here is given by Kevin Murphy in 1989 for a Region I Society of Composers Conference in Jewett Arts Center of Wellesley College.

Nocturne for piano

A performance of my Ballade by Anastasiya Abadjieva, violin and Aleksandra Ivanova, piano. Recorded in January 2020 at the concert hall of the National Music Academy "Pancho Vladigerov" in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Score is available for online perusal at: https://www.jwpepper.com/Ballade/11196647.item#/submit

Ballade: the Fox and the Grapes for violin & piano

A suite for piano composed in 2017. It is comprised of movements suggestive of forms from opera. The movements are: 
Prologue, 
Chorus I, 
Aria, 
Recitative, 
Fugue, 
Chorus II, 
Epilogue. 

The work was premiered in Bulgaria Hall in Sofia on January 14, 2020 by Aleksandra Ivanova.

Score is available for perusal online at J. W. Pepper Music: https://www.jwpepper.com/Opera-Scenes-without-a-Libretto/11196060.item#myratebox2

Opera Scenes without a Libretto for piano

Aleksandra Ivanova - piano

Recorded from the Musical World of America and Bulgaria Concert:
      A program presented January 14, 2020  
      Chamber Hall Bulgaria, Sofia

This suite for piano is in 3 movements with each suggesting and abstract image: 
I. Koto Strings Resounding in Blue Sky, 
II. Dewdrops Fall--Memories Ring Upon a Moonlit Pond, 
III. Dragonflies in Furious Flight. 

This work was premiered in 2003 in an alumni concert program sponsored by the New England Conservatory of Music and performed by Boston area pianist Miyuki Otani.

Three Japanese Images for piano

I am a composer that is classically trained with broad interest and experience in world musics. MM New England Conservatory '86, BM University of Massachusetts at Amherst '76.

My compositions have won awards from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, New England Reed Trio International Chamber Music Composition Competition, a Bryant Fellowship from Harvard University, and a certificate from the 21st Century Music Project Competition of the the International Center for Japanese Culture in Yokohama, Japan. My works have been performed across the United States, Europe and Japan.

As a composer, I am interested in considering commissions and collaborations. Performing scores and parts are available to all my works here on SoundCloud through Universal Edition, J. W. Pepper Music, Frank Warren Music Service, or by contacting me.

I hope you enjoy listening here.

Martin Max Schreiner, composer

Popular tracks