Music for Orchestra

See the score at: https://issuu.com/utsyochakraborty/docs/chakraborty_three_instances


Three Instances for Orchestra (2021)
by Utsyo Chakraborty

1. Duos and Trios (0:00)
2. Calls (3:37)
3. Shadows (6:54)

My "Three Instances for Orchestra" were composed rather quickly, between late March and early May of 2021. A suite of three miniature tone poems (one of the reasons I call them "Instances"), it is scored for a relatively small orchestra, having single winds, two horns, trumpet, trombone, 4 percussionists (playing marimba, vibraphone and a variety of unpitched percussion instruments) and a small contingent of strings. 

"Duos and Trios" consists of a single melody fractured into a number of fragments, which are then layered one on top of the other. The texture is characterized by duos and Trios of winds, brass and percussion playing at a time with a halo of string playing. 

"Calls" is a triptych in itself. The first section features some bird like figurations from the individual wind players. The second section has two layers: duos of solo strings with brass and winds along with a steady, yet slightly offset rhythmic pattern played by the percussion. The third section brings back material from the preceding music and ties them together into a short coda. 

"Shadows" is a slow, meditative piece with a focus on textures which can be created by various combinations of instruments in the orchestra. Although one can find many similarities in gesture with the previous movements, there is an individual voice in this piece which makes it serve as an apotheosis to the suite. It looks back reflectively on what has elapsed before. 



Three Instances for Orchestra (2021)

The Darkling Thrush, for orchestra
Composed in 2017. 
Revised in 2022. 

This tone poem for orchestra was composed in 2017, after being fascinated by the vivid imagery of the barren, English winter landscape captured in the eponymous poem by Thomas Hardy. Some of the orchestration was revised in December, 2022. 

Here is the poem:

I leant upon a coppice gate
      When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
      The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
      Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
      Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
      The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
      The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
      Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
      Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
      The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
      Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
      In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
      Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
      Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
      Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
      His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
      And I was unaware.

(https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44325/the-darkling-thrush)

The Darkling Thrush, a poem for orchestra (2017, rev. 2022)

Sun Pillars (Concerto for Orchestra)
1. Aurora (Work in Progress)
Composed between June - September 2022.

After writing my Piano Concerto and Three Instances for Orchestra, I decided to follow the two up with a Concerto for Orchestra. The initial process of sketching the work was interrupted by a series of composing shorter chamber works which led to the project being shelved. 

Suddenly out of the blue, Nicolas Kingman asked me about my progress on the Concerto. I decided to send him what I've written and he asked me to upload it on my SoundCloud page ("post it... 
why deny the world?" was his response). 

Sun Pillars (Concerto for Orchestra) 1: Aurora (Work in Progress)

Three Romances for Orchestra
Composed between July-October 2023.

1. I lie here thinking of you [0:00]
2. I see a wild civility [4:59]
3.  When I die, I want your hands on my eyes [11:11]

Composed as a sequel to my Three Instances for Orchestra, the difference between these pieces and its predecessor is exactly in the title (despite the formal similarities: a moderately paced first movement, a fast second movement and a slow third). The Instances are more abstract in their content, besides being composed for a smaller orchestra. The Romances are more explicitly "amoureux", love-struck. 

I preface each movement with a line from a love poem. The first movement, based on "Love Song" by William Carlos Williams, is a yearning address from one lover to another separated by a great distance. The second, from "Delight in Disorder" by Robert Herrick, highlights the beauty of imperfection. The third movement, inspired by Pablo Neruda, brings the cycle to a full circle with death and acceptance.

Love Song – William Carlos Williams
I lie here thinking of you:—
 
the stain of love
is upon the world!
Yellow, yellow, yellow
it eats into the leaves,
smears with saffron
the horned branches that lean
heavily
against a smooth purple sky!
There is no light
only a honey-thick stain
that drips from leaf to leaf
and limb to limb
spoiling the colors
of the whole world—
 
you far off there under
the wine-red selvage of the west!


Delight in Disorder – Robert Herrick 

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness;
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction;
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher;
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribands to flow confusedly;
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility:
Do more bewitch me, than when art
Is too precise in every part.


When I die, I want your hands on my eyes – Pablo Neruda 

When I die, I want your hands on my eyes.
I want the light and wheat of your beloved hands to pass their freshness over me once more.
I want to feel the softness that changed my destiny.

I want you to live while I wait for you, asleep.
I want your ears still to hear the wind, I want you to sniff the sea's aroma that we loved together,
to continue to walk on the sand we walk on.

I want what I love to continue to live,
and you whom I love and sang above everything else.
to continue to flourish, full-flowered.

So that you can reach everything my love directs you to.
So that my shadow can travel along in your hair,
so that everything can learn the reason for my song.

Three Romances for Orchestra (2023)

See the score: https://issuu.com/utsyochakraborty/docs/chakraborty_a_concerto_for_piano_and_orchestra

A Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (2020-21) 

1. A Triptych: Prelude - Partita - Toccata I (0:00-10:30)
2. Introduction - Cadenza - Nocturne (10:30-20:05)
3. Finale - Toccata II (20:05-29:12)

to Nicolas Kingman, on his 45th birthday. 

"A Concerto for Piano and Orchestra" was composed between the months of August and December 2020, with revisions being made in January 2021. Writing a concerted piece for piano with orchestra had always been something I wanted to do. After six abortive attempts over a span of 7 years did this piece come along. As time passed, my own conception of the work changed. I wanted to create a piece in which the orchestra had an important role to play and was not just merely accompanying the piano. Each instrumental group is an individual voice, or as Harry Birtwistle says "voices in a football chorus". The piece is laid out in three movements, closely interconnected to each other. The first movement is a Triptych, beginning with a brash and aggressive prelude and then leading into a playful game (thus, partita) before concluding with a rhythmically agile toccata. The second movement, a nocturne, is linked to the previous movement via a cadenza. This movement features a melody, developing slowly in the winds and brass, with commentary from the Piano, percussion and strings, till there is an almost exultant release of energy making that developing melody present itself uninterrupted. This leads directly into the third movement, which transforms the material of the toccata of the first movement into a frantic, jovial dance which dies away in the spirit of the nocturne. 

The work is a 45th birthday present for Nicolas Kingman, with whom I have had some wonderful conversations in music and who "wanted to hear the Piano Concerto quite eagerly!" 
