score available via Project Schott New York
Cantus is inspired by the metrically free style of plainchant, in particular the music of Hildegard of Bingen. The score is proportionally notated, and gives no indications regarding rhythm or tempo. Instead, the player is invited to devise their own phrasings, timing, and articulations. In the beginning of the work, short melodic motives alternate with tremolos and long sustained tones, which eventually give way to florid melismatic passages. When played with reverberation, ecstatic melodies create harmonic resonances, while expansive sustained tones serve as refrains, recalling the reciting tones heard in sacred vocal chant. The work climaxes with a paraphrase of Hildegard’s Nunc Aperuit Nobis Clausa Porta (Today A Closed Portal Opened For Us), an antiphon to the Virgin Mary. This gives way to a primordial evocation, resounding in the form of a low open G.
One of my few works for solo instrument without electronics, Sumna was composed in summer of 2015, for my longtime collaborator Kivie Cahn-Lipman. The word Sumna means “prayer” or “hymn” in Sanskrit, and the music features echoes of Hildegard of Bingen, heavy metal riffing, and the gamba works of Marin Marais. Sumna is dedicated to Fred Lerdahl.