Out of the Wilderness
Movements
About the Music
Out of the Wilderness presents a range of emotional experiences grounded in a single idea, imagining the Israelites’ wanderings through the Wilderness. The musical journey is more a distillation of the whole than a portrayal of the event sequence set forth in the Bible, although there are sections that conjure up seminal episodes, like the Scherzo (the Golden Calf) and the Coda (Moses denied entry to the Promised Land). In this light Out of the Wilderness is more a metaphor for the continuing trek of the Jewish people than an illumination of a Biblical story.
Out of the Wilderness adapts as its constructive framework forms from the Baroque and Classical periods. The underlying structure is derived from the passacaglia, a Baroque form rejuvenated in the 20th century. From this vantage point, Out of the Wilderness consists of a theme and 31 variations in which the theme appears as an ostinato: sometimes at the forefront, sometimes in the background (and sometimes switching in between), but always present. In Out of the Wilderness the variations are grouped into movements that mimic the movements of a Classical symphony.
About the Musical Materials
Out of the Wilderness uses the octatonic collection (e.g., C#-D#-E-F#-G-A-Bb-C). If played as a scale, it sounds a lot like the familiar minor scale – you can build it by taking the first four notes of the minor scale and then transposing them by a tritone. You also can build an octatonic scale by combining two “diminished seventh” chords (e.g., C#-E-G-Bb and D#-F#-A-C). Since there are exactly three different diminished seventh chords, there are exactly three different octatonic scales. Each diminished seventh chord belongs to two octatonic scales; a melody starting on the same pitch in each of these maintains the same contour but exchanges whole and half steps. This presents the opportunity of relating these scales as modal variants, analogous to the relationship between major and minor modes in tonal music. Out of the Wilderness exploits this by presenting the ostinato in both modes.
Out of the Wilderness also treats the octatonic scale as a collection, frequently exploiting the relationships between complementary groups of notes, that is, groups that taken together contain all the notes in the scale without repetitions. This is like twelve-tone music based on relationships among complementary parts of the chromatic scale.
Many of the variations employ a harmony drawn from the octatonic scale where the chords sound like major and minor triads, although they function in ways different from what you might expect from tonal music.
Out of the Wilderness uses duple meter, although the two beats are different sizes. The meters in Out of the Wilderness use five subdivisions to the measure, grouped 3+2 (long/short) and 2+3 (short/long). The ostinato has one version for each grouping; so there are four versions in the piece (mixing meter and mode).
About the Piece
The variations are presented in eleven groups comprising five movements. In each group the members are related by musical process and affect. Italian, the traditional language of affect in music (and an affectation in this piece), denotes the affect of each variation.
Dedication
Out of the Wilderness is dedicated to my parents, Claire and Irving, whose faith and encouragement spur me to continue growing as a composer and whose generosity made this recording possible.