My Lyre Within the Sky

My Lyre Within the Sky (2025) attempts to address the nature of grief and loss stemming from the lifelong struggles of those closest to us. The title is drawn from Edgar Allen Poe's poem Israfel which describes an angel whose "heart-strings are a lute" and sings with the most beautiful voice in all creation. Poe laments the angel's ability to perfectly capture the deepest of emotions while we on earth are left with only a "mortal melody." The author knows that, if taken to heaven, he could sing with a "bolder note" from his "lyre within the sky." My composition will interpret both Poe's words as well as my own encounters with grief to hopefully express a musical connection to those who we have lost and will lose. Emerging from a single sustained note that frays and reknits, a solo clarinet melody is presented alternately between consonant and dissonant accompaniments. This gives way to a slowly building asymmetrical ostinato as a "bolder note" that culminates in an explosive arrival that recall's Elsa's Procession. This massive cadence then subsumes again into a single pitch, forever fraying and knitting into the infinite. This work was commissioned for the Cincinnati Wind Band by Randell Bertsche and is dedicated to the memory of his brother Jeremiah Page. (notes by the composer, January 2025, Fort Collins, Colorado)