This third movement performed at MMF 2024 explores group adoption of evil ideas.
The tubular bells introduce the rhythms of 2 dictators’ speech rhythms, one from the 1920’s to 1940’s (in his rile-them-up cadences, not his regular speaking voice) and the other from 2016 to present (Tremendous; Very Bad, Lock Them Up).  The other instruments (oboe, bassoon, piano, and cello) and at times the harp, alternate between their own tunes, protest themes, and the martial rhythms of the sample dictators’ speeches.  There are 2 different protest songs (a Yiddish melody from Es Brent, by Mordechai Gebirtig, used as a protest during Hitler’s persecution and extermination of Jews and other groups, and “We Shall Overcome” from the Civil Rights movement in the US, and reused in modern times).  The snare drum alternating with the bells creates an underlying militancy.  Later in the piece, the protest songs are played in the speech rhythms and a martial rhythm to signify the capture and mocking caricature of them by the oppressors (often with a sliver of freedom symbolized by themes played in their original rhythm by bassoon or others).   Tempo changes and more complex interweavings depict the increasing chaos and confusion.  The movement ends quietly, with the original tunes of oboe, bassoon, and cello and echo of dictator-speak or is it a protest?


08_Normalizing Evil the Last 100 Years 1924-2024  LESS REVERB

Hiding From the Law 1. Hiding and the Chase: I had a dream in 2019 of being in a narrow building looking onto a narrow street under some kind of building or overpass, like a train station along a highway.  Here the slow opening theme and then the faster “running” theme came to me.  There was someone in the building with me who was hiding from the police, and at first it seemed they did not know where he was, but then it turned out they did and came looking for him.  I wrote down the dream and musical ideas on awakening and later added sections.  Chasing, trying to be unpredictable, resting a moment, and not sure how it ends.

02_Hiding From the Law LESS REVERB

2. Chaotic Times:  After recording the first movement (Hiding From the Law: Hiding and the Chase) in November 2024, I created a followup movement, in light of the recent presidential election and continued rise of oligarchy, climate chaos and xenophobia around the world.  While the first movement was conceived as a common cops and criminal chase, it could also be a criminal hiding in political office with plans for immunity thereby.  After some halting starts, sort of waiting to see just what will happen, about a minute and a half enter several 12 tone rows, inverted and reversed, rhythmically varied and sometimes broken into segments.  Many considered serial music as evil, as discordant (it is often dissonant to an ear trained to earlier European forms, folk, or popular music), but a bath of it could begin to seem more normal, especially a century after its invention. This chaos ends fragmented – is it species extinction, end of democracy, or fading of a nightmare?  Are the bird calls at the end a hope or omen.  There is no way of knowing. 

03_Chaotic Times LESS REVERB

I was asked to write a short piano piece for a September 2018 fire survivors performance of monologues about the October 9, 2017 Redwood Complex fire.  Our personal experience was unique in that the July 2017 Grade Fire blackened nearly all our land and actually allowed us to stay and put out ember fires rather than fleeing in the firestorm many experienced.  Our stress was largely not knowing what happened to others.  I performed it in September and October in Ukiah and Redwood Valley as a solo piano piece which is on the Nature’s Dream album.  I wanted something about the fires that affected our community to appear in a Ukiah Symphony concert on March 24, 2019, so when in Colombia writing music I added some parts; recently I rewrote, added increasing dissonance to each appearance of the hot wind sections, recalling how our bamboo windchimes were clanking crazily.  I wrote words to help me create and organize the short episodes of music: 
“Red Flag Warning, Jaye came home from residency! hot wind, Happy reunion, hot wind, romantic evening, hot wind, warm embrace, sleep, smoke or just a hot night?, sleep, Yanahay texts “Potter Valley on Fire”, red on our ridge, Fire!, how again?, who to call? Everyone we know between here and Potter Valley, landing ember fires, propane tank booms.”  Fire survivor monologues about a caravan escaping over a dirt road with 14 stream crossings, as well as others facing the flames and driving through them, had their influence on the last few parts of the piece.  9 people died from the fire directly, numerous others badly injured, and still others from the trauma they experienced died in the ensuing months.  But the community came together beautifully, created art from recovered objects, helped each other, and buried differences that no longer seemed important.  The 2019 version of the piece was featured in Jaye Alison Moscariello’s documentary From the Ashes.  


12_October 8-9 LESS REVERB

Saratoga Salsa  At MMF 2023 a French horn player said if I wrote a horn piece, she’d play it.  I asked her the kind of music she likes and she said “salsa”.  I finished it after MMF 2023 ended so she didn’t get to play it.  After performing a shorter version on Oct 6, 2024 and talking with Dave Eggar, I realized that trumpet would be better.   After some introductory material with a Latin feel, the piece introduces 2 different salsa rhythms, the second of which gets a bit dissonant but there is a playful energy throughout

06_Saratoga Salsa LESS REVERB

I composed the violin-piano version in Costa Rica in 2018 from sketches written in the early 1980’s, and added cello in 2019.  It started as solo piano but my wife Jaye Alison Moscariello said she heard violin so I added that first.  When I learned strings are not at their best in D flat, I changed to D so it could be played on either strings or woodwinds, switched to oboe and bassoon for an Oct, 2024 concert and oboe and cello here.

04_Ode to Ludwig LESS REVERB

Regenerate, Heal, Cool  I am passionate about solving the climate crisis by restoring natural cycles such as the water cycle.  The way more “civilized” humans have farmed for millennia, with plowing that destroys soil life, creating hot surfaces of deserts, removing most plants that keep the water cycle going, and burning carbon in the soil, informs this piece.  The second movement depicts the solution being practiced by truly regenerative farmers (ones not using biocides).  These methods were generally practiced by indigenous cultures but abandoned with a more violent and competitive culture that seemed to accompany what we call civilization, leading to the fall of numerous such societies as their land was depleted of biological processes.  Perhaps there is time to learn from past mistakes, as many farmers are now doing.  This is especially important now as biological farming cools the climate by replacing bare soil with vegetation, restores the water cycle, and increases soil carbon.
The first movement “Sere” is in 2/4.  It describes the growing season on a monoculture farm, starting with driving mechanical music for plowing and planting, a tranquil rain which becomes a downpour with erosion and ponding due to compacted dead soil (glissandi).  As the land dries out, the bare soil heats with direct sun (dissonant chords and irregular rhythms).  Between the flooding and heat, the crop does not survive so a rushed replanting followed by rain and fertilizer-induced rapid growth brings pests, weeds, and biocide spraying (somber music).  Lots of descending glissandi and quieting presents the death of the soil life.  A dirge conveys the frustration of paperwork, insurance claims, and crop failure.  A dust storm seals the disaster, followed by meager harvest and plowing under.
The second movement has a joyful tone throughout.  This biodiversity, vibrant, abundant natural farming movement is in 13/8 which allows interesting intrameasure groupings with diverse rhythms and sounds.  It opens with bird calls, a lively scene above ground with interwoven motifs from all instruments.  A few successive tonality changes point to the rich biodiversity of this regenerative farm.    A darker idea represents pests entering, but they are quickly handled by the intelligence of the ecosystem.  Even more interweaving of themes and shifting rhythms draw attention to the below ground world that makes all this abundant life possible. It builds gently into a continuing dance with bird calls, underground and aboveground life (animal, fungal, and bacterial), & happy plants.


13_Regenerate Heal Cool LESS REVERB

The first theme came in a dream of a Swedish string band.  There is a fugue in the middle and lots of changes in tempo and mood from meditative to frantic

05_Swedish Band Dream LESS REVERB

Lucy Soundscape 2:  NASA provided the 3-note motif and I submitted my first attempt in 2021 to the “Lucy Soundscape” website where many other composers posted theirs.  I expanded it after sharing it with MMF composers and getting suggestions.  Now it closely approximates the Lucy spacecraft’s speed and perks up when all the instruments are focusing on the next asteroid (fast string and oboe playing).  Because it uses multiple gravitational slingshot flybys of Earth, the speed varies a lot, and because the mission is 12 years long, scaled it to 20 measures per year for most of the piece.  Then with the 2028 to 2033 time period with only one asteroid pair to visit, I compressed that time even more to keep the piece a reasonable length.  The Trojan asteroids orbit in 2 clumps 60 degrees ahead of and behind Jupiter, beyond the main asteroid belt.  

01_Lucy Soundscape 2 LESS REVERB

The piano part of this piece came out one month in 1983, a few measures each day.  It felt channeled rather than written – more like birth than development of some initial idea.  The northwestern US forests are a cathedral, and Keve Wilson’s oboe and Gina Cuffari’s bassoon soar and dance within it.  The original piano part was written when I lived with Judith da Silva whose last name translates to the song title.  This trio version was composed in 2024.

08_Normalizing Evil the Last 100 Years 1924-2024 LESS REVERB

Bill Taylor