Begin Again for Baritone saxophone, cello, piano, and Meditation guide
At the start of his time with the Artist Propulsion Lab, composer and saxophonist Steven Banks set out to compose a piece of music that explores meditation and mindfulness, and in which the music and meditation were supportive partners. The result is Begin Again, created in collaboration with Ten Percent Happier meditation teacher Matthew Hepburn. Begin Again uses guided meditative exploration and musical composition to lend insight into the ways that we relate to struggles within ourselves and in the world. On the final episode of this year's Artist Propulsion Lab, Steven and Matthew take us inside Begin Again, followed by a performance of the entire piece.
Cries, Sighs, and Dreams for alto Saxophone and String Quartet
For Cries, Sighs, and Dreams, composer and saxophonist Steven Banks found inspiration in the history of the saxophone. When Adolphe Sax first arrived in Paris in summer 1842, he invited composer Hector Berlioz to inspect a prototype of his new instrument. Berlioz was impressed, writing, “It cries, sighs, and dreams. It possesses a crescendo and can gradually diminish its sound until it is only an echo of an echo of an echo—until its sound becomes crepuscular.” A few years later, he repeated his praise of the instrument, writing in Le Journal des débats, “I know of no other instrument that possesses this particular capacity to reach the outer limits of audible sound.”
Written between late 2020 and early 2021 (an expansion and transformation of an earlier work for the same ensemble), the piece was born out of Banks’s experience of the isolation of pandemic lockdowns: teaching saxophone lessons on Zoom, the lack of performance opportunities, the end of a relationship. “I just felt completely lost,” he recalls. But gradually, he came to terms with his inner and outer chaos, accepting it, even if he wasn’t necessarily happy about it.
This piece takes his pandemic experience and generalizes it to depict transitions more broadly. It is divided into three broad sections which roughly map onto the moods of the three words from the Berlioz quote in the title. “Cries” is full of discordant, tumultuous harmonies and sharper sounds in the strings. “Sighs” is more nebulous and oblique, drawing on the woozy harmonies of late Scriabin. And “Dreams” is like a saxophone aria. Interspersed between these sections are improvised passages where the saxophonist (here, the composer) creates a moaning sound that even more directly reflects these various emotional states.
Program note written by Dan Ruccia.
Headphones highly recommended. Piece begins VERY quietly and is intended to start in darkness.
Jacob’s StairCAse for Reed Quintet
Jacob's Staircase takes a light-hearted, perhaps even comical, appoach to the feeling of a never-ending climb. This piece draws musical inspiration from two very different works that depict never-ending ascents: the spiritual We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder and Ligeti's infamous thirteenth piano etude, The Devil's Staircase.
The lyrics to We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder, like most spirituals, are relatively simple and Biblical on the surface. However, many believe that they referred to the seemingly endless journey to freedom for the enslaved Black Americans who would have sung this song while working.
Ligeti's The Devil's Staircase is one of my favorite works for piano. Its chromaticism and cyclical nature are reminiscent of a climb to nowhere or a journey that continually brings you back to its beginning. The contrasting middle section of this work can be thought of as a meditative reflection on one's journey towards the ultimate goal.
-Steven
Jacob’s Staircase was commissioned by the Yale Bands, Yale Glee Club, and Yale Symphony Orchestra.