The attack goes to the point of burnout and emptiness in “The End.” Performed by Kati Rittner.

Coronavirus Preludes

Coronavirus Preludes: The End

7. The End

The tenth segment “Discretionary Time” reflects the freedom and time one could have to amuse oneself during the Coronavirus. Performed by Kati Rittner.

Coronavirus Preludes: Discretionary Time

10. Discretionary Time

Thousands of years ago, ancient men and women had spiritual experiences. Such is the inspiration for the work Six-Winged Seraphim. The title is inspired on a passage of the book of Isaiah in which six-winged seraphims cover Jehovah, only to ultimately reveal Jehovah himself to Isaiah. Jehovah expresses that most people probably won’t follow Isaiah as a result of their lack of understanding and unwillingness to listen, yet tells Isaiah to try to tell them what they need to hear anyways to the end of time. The work expresses this seraphic dreamworld that gives Isaiah the fortitude to never suspend giving his message, having seen for himself. Overall, I imagine a dream world combined with overwhelming light.

Six - Winged Seraphim

This work was performed by [TriO] Flute Horn Piano. Teja Saksida, Soprano Nikolina Kovač, Flute Robert Petrič, Horn Lovorka Nemeš Dular, Piano

[TriO] flavta-rog-klavir

From Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein - I DO NOT FEAR

This is a peaceful work for ambient sounds takes you to the stars!

Starry Observatory

I have always been fascinated with eternity. I have written many musical works about it. That's why my wife and I both have engagement rings with the infinity sign on them. That's why I hold the religious views that I do. That's why I love the history of the earth. 

Infinite Garden Dawn is about cycles of the earth through time. I imagine standing in the same spot, year to year, seeing each individual dawn unfold. Though there are endings and beginnings of each day, yet if we looked deeper, we would see that all is one. And if we view things on the short term, all seems to be one as well. 

The work is an elaborate Shepherd-Risset tone that reflects the stasis of changing nature from year to year. It begins the same way that it ends, having gone entirely through the circle of fifths. Despite descending downwards the entire time, the work arrives at the exact same pitch area it started on. In the short term, all is one, but on the long term, all is one as well, despite the significant mid-range changes. 

The sound clips were used from Yellowstone National Park's website, where they offer public domain sound clips. I used to live by Yellowstone National Park as a kid, and the park means a lot to me. As an aside, here's a reminder gentle reminder from me take care of nature and stay away from the big animals. 

It's part of my album, Unicorn Garden, which can be found on Spotify. It's a beautiful work that takes listeners of all types through a meditative journey, where they can breath, relax, and find peace.

Infinite Garden Dawn

Dances Of The Budding Spring

Love's Longing

The Antique Tapestry

Quiet And Beautiful Days

Waterfalls of the Forest

The Death Of A Great King

The Harsh North

Deeds of Winter

Dreams Will Come True Felt 96khz

Ten Billion Tears for Orchestra

Land Of The Castles

Contemplations of Eternal Light has an interesting story, and unlike many of my works, deserves a long, detailed program note. One day in the summer 2011, I was finishing up my bachelor’s degree and was about to begin a master’s degree in oboe performance. I was
reading a book about the spiritual aspects of the cosmos and decided that I would write a masterwork for orchestra (first, for piano, then I decided I’d arrange it for orchestra) that would
feature a single 12 tone cantus firmus that would be retrograded, inverted, retrograde inverted,and be about a mystical journey through the cosmos. I finished the Orchestration in
2012. It would be in six movements played continuously: Starlight, The Organization of the Universe, Moon Gardens, Everlasting Burnings, and Looking Backwards into Eternity. The first
movement, to me, reflects the human urge to look up at the stars in sublime awe and the awareness that the whole world is much bigger than ourselves and we are essential in it. The
ending movement recapitulates material from the first and fifth movements, representing the culmination of the entire journey that the piece progressed through. If I remember correctly,
just like Scriabin had the “Mystic Chord,” this orchestra piece has an early version of what I will call my “Sun” chord, which shows up in my works sometimes when I am calling to mind the
brilliant light of sun (though not always). In fact, this chord ends the work (it only happens twice). For whatever the reason, the A chord combined with a G7 chord is a wonderfully
sonorous chord. I did some editing of the score in 2013 and again this year, so this version isupdated.

Contemplations Of Eternal Light

Loneliness

Sublime Songs is a 35 minute multi-movement, six-channel work for live-processed soprano, live-processed baritone, electric violin, electric cello, electronic mallets, and two synthesizers. The piece also requires a conductor. The voices, the electric violin and electric cello have an audio feedback and are fed into the computer system through an interface. The electronic mallets and two synthesizers use MIDI to send instructions computer, and use computer-derived patches. An audio engineer using a controller, also has a musical line in the work, making changes to the sound or to initiate sound clips. Techniques such as panning, reverberation, flanging, and filter sweep are also used. 
The first movement, “Death,” uses poetry from World War I. This section explores the world of departed souls, premature death, war, remembrance, and peace. “The Tortoise and the Hare,” movement 2, turns a classic Aesop’s fable into a surreal moral lesson teaching that slow and steady does not win the race. To paint the opposite of the text in the music, the tortoise is portrayed as fast, and the hare as slow. The hare wins. Patches create sonorities in both synthesizers that would be impossible for a human being to perform otherwise.  In movement 3, “Sunset and Night,” the music follows the setting of the sun and subsequent darkness that follows, symbolizing perhaps the end of life and the accounting of all deeds done therein. A harmonically active sound being flanged characterizes the beginning of the work.  The “Love Song” that is the fourth movement portrays a broken relationship, and each voice is put through a filter that makes each sound as if they are on the phone. Both of the third and fourth movements use panning automation that is played in a loop for each instrument. Finally, the fifth movement “Childhood,” uses a similar layout as the first. This section uses a short fragment of the poem, “Characteristics of a Child Three Years Old,” and another text about seeing an unidentified person’s face again. A manipulated filter cutoff makes subtle changes to the sound. The work ends with the words “all Sufficient.”
Sublime Songs often combines texts from poems into single musical entities. The effect of assimilating different texts together ultimately provides context and meaning to each movement. The text was written by the composer, A.E. Murray, John Galsworthy, Robert Ernest Vernéde, A.T. Nankivell, George Fyler Townsend, Ina Coolbrith, and William Wordsworth.

Movement 2 Mockup

Movement 1 Mockup

Written for dance choreographed by Rebecca Krumel, and performed by Mary Catherine Womack.

Intimations Of Immortality

This work was performed by Chad Spears and Sofia Scattarreggia, as well as recorded by Adam Klein. The song cycle, On the Life of Roses, tells a story of the growth, mortal existence, and death of roses. The first movement “While Roses Grow,” is active, quirky and cheerful, showing the things that happen as roses grow. In “Blossom Is,” the singer contemplates in the peace and beauty of a rose and the world around it. Finally, in “Dead Roses,” the third movement, the passing of the rose is mourned, leading to an intense climax. Roses definitely hold cultural meaning, and I believe many symbolic “roses” can live and die in a lifetime. The text came from Ina Coolbrith’s (1841-1928) Songs from the Golden Gate, which is in the public domain (1895).

Robert Anton Strobel

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