At the Still Point of the Turning World
| Year Composed: | 2025 |
| Instrumentation: | 2.2.1bcl.2/3.2.2.1/timp+1 perc/hp/pno/s.cl/strings |
| Duration | 13 minutes |
Program Notes
The title is drawn from a verse of Burnt Norton, the first of T.S. Eliot's seminal book of poems known as the Four Quartets. It is a verse that conjures the image of a sacred space, at once delicate and vast, amidst the restless tumult of the external environment. This image is reflected in the musical language of the piece, which aims to express - in ways that are hard to articulate in mechanical terms - the suspension of time. What happens when both past and future melt away and we are left only with the present moment? This is music that endeavours to live, and thrive, in that moment: the still point of the turning world.
I composed this concertino for Nathan Williams, ROCO's principal clarinetist, who not only suggested the title, but whose experiences performing for residents in hospice served as the fundamental inspiration behind this work. The words he so movingly used to describe his role - accompanying people in their last moments "to the other side" - influenced both the structure and spirit of this work. Although the opening of the piece - with its dark, brooding sonorities - is steeped in grief, the music soon veers to brighter pastures: reveries tinged with nostalgia, shimmering, cosmic landscapes, even the occasional dash of whimsy (including a jazzy duet with bass clarinet). Throughout, the clarinet acts as a guide, gently shepherding the orchestra (and the listener) toward a valedictory cadenza, one in which virtuosity is eschewed in favour of a simplicity of expression that seems to hail from another era.
What follows the cadenza is a hymn-like passage for solo piano that suggests a return to the intimacy of childhood, paving the way for an unexpectedly soaring finale. While the exuberance of this coda may suggest the celebration of a life well-lived, it has further significance to me as well: At the Still Point of the Turning World was composed only a few months after a harrowing medical journey of my own, where my son Robin (four months old at the time) received a life-saving liver transplant. I, too, experienced my own "still point" - a moment where past and future seemed to collapse into a singularity of intense emotion, clarity, and meaning. The joy that characterizes the piece's final measures is the joy of an answered prayer: the promise of new life, the light on the other side of death.
Performances
- September 26/27, 2025 - ROCO (River Oaks Chamber Orchestra), conducted by Delyana Lazarova; Nathan Williams, clarinet. Church of St. John and the Divine, Houston, Texas (USA).
Commissions and Awards
- Commissioned by ROCO (River Oaks Chamber Orchestra).