Sonata Hymnica No. 3

Program Note about the Sonata Hymnica Series Composer James Siddons draws on the ethos of American rural hymns and spirituals to create evocations of the deeper, larger meaning of familiar church melodies. These sonatas for piano solo explore these deeper meanings in a variety of contemporary musical influences, while keeping in mind the acoustics of small rural churches of the late nineteenth century, with wooden floors and walls, high ceilings, and dimensions determined by local builders who knew how to shape a room for excellent acoustics in an age of no electricity and no microphones. These sonatas are but partly about the specific melodies and words, and mostly about their meaning in spiritual contemplation . . . and the piano, resonating, reverberant, sometimes whispering---as a sacred harp. Sonata Hymnica No. 3 is in two movements: I. "Were You There?" and II. "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child." These two movements are not arrangements of the familiar tunes so much as a contemplation on the deeper, spiritual meaning of the words, and of their influence on our understanding of the spiritual life today. Although the first three sonatas of teh Sonata Hymnica Series have no specific titles, the first sonata may be thought of as the Prayer Sonata, the second as the Travel Sonata, as in a spiritual journey, and this, the third sonata, is about our greatest fear, that of being alone and without God.