Slow Learning

Type
Piece
Composer
Jonathan David
Composer Nationality
American
Composer Date of Birth
1965
Text
Scott Cairns
Year Composed
2009
Minutes
5
Difficulty
5 (Challenging)
Language
English
Voicing
4 part mixed chorus
Divisi
No
Solos
S, A, T, B
Extended Techniques
No
Sacred or Secular
Secular
Description

One can only be so serious setting a text about paper training, and there is certainly a disconnect between the earthy text and the gravitas of some of the solo vocal lines here. But Scott Cairns’ poem is ultimately about mercy. Concluding the work with an outsize and formally Bachian fugue is, on the one hand, of course patently ridiculous. And yet, viewed as a kind of “Miserere mei” (“Have mercy”) re-directed to the third person (“Forgive him”), it is perhaps less absurd and even rather spiritual.

Group
C4
Performances
C4: 2009 Nov 19 & 21 (Greatest and Latest), cond. Harris (World Premiere)