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David Carpenter (b. 1972) has composed works in many different genres, from chamber and solo piano, to choral and orchestral. His music has been performed at the Aspen Music Festival and School (where he was a student in the Individual Studies Program in composition), the Oregon Bach Festival and the Brevard Music Center. As a composer with a special interest in vocal music, his solo cantata Juliet (with a text from Romeo and Juliet) was performed by the contemporary music ensemble Brave New Works, and his choral work Fredericksburg was premiered by baritone William Stone with the Temple University Concert Choir and Chamber Orchestra conducted by Alan Harler, as part of the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society’s 2007–2008 concert series. He has also collaborated with the Momenta Quartet (New York, NY), who in 2008 performed his String Quartet and featured it on their demo CD; bassoon virtuoso Pascal Gallois, who premiered his Three Myths for Solo Bassoon in 2008; and the Argento Ensemble (New York, NY) who performed his Sextet in 2010. His song “The Monogamous Man” was featured as part Network for New Music’s “Dialogues with Darwin” concert in Philadelphia, February 2010. His teachers include Herschel Garfein, Sydney Hodkinson, Kevin Puts and Robert Aldridge. Mr. Carpenter received degrees from Bates College (B.A., 1994) and the Peabody Conservatory (M.Mus., 1998). He is currently a doctoral student at the Boyer College of Music and Dance, Temple University, where he has studied with Richard Brodhead, Matthew Greenbaum and Maurice Wright.
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SELECTED WORKS (titles in bold indicate that a recording of the work can be heard under the “Compositions” section (below) of this webpage)
Orchestral Prelude, 2010, for orchestra, 6 mins. When the birds return, 2005, rev. 2008, for orchestra, 8 mins. Overture Apollo, 2004, for string orchestra, 5 mins. Choral Fredericksburg, 2007, for baritone solo, SATB chorus and chamber orchestra, 19 mins. Chamber Sextet, for oboe, clarinet, bassoon, violin viola and cello, 2010, 4 mins. Fantasia, for violin and piano, 2009, 10 mins. Pastorale, for woodwind quintet, 2009, 5 mins. Three Myths for Solo Bassoon, 2008, 8 mins. String Quartet, 2007, 5 1/2 mins. Songs Two Songs, 2009 (“Old Adam, the carrion crow,” text by Thomas Lovell Beddoes; “The Sorrow of Love,” text by William Butler Yeats), Solo voice & ensemble Where We Are Least Alone, 2008, soprano, clarinet, violin, piano, 5 1/2 mins. Juliet (dramatic cantata), 2004, soprano, flute, harp, 13 mins. Piano Little Elegy, 2007, 5 mins. When soft voices die, 2007, 6 mins. |
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Compositions | |||
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Where we are least alone |
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The text of this work is taken from Lord Byron’s great epic poem, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, which tells the story of a young man, who, having lived a dissolute life in England, goes on a journey through Europe in search of real meaning to his life. In the stanzas below, he finds himself by Lake Geneva (or Lake Leman, as it is called in the poem) in Switzerland, which serves as inspiration for some of Byron’s most eloquent poetry—an paean to the “eternal harmony” between nature and music. All Heaven and Earth are still—though not in sleep, But breathless, as we grow when feeling most; And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep:— All Heaven and Earth are still: From the high host Of stars, to the lulled lake and mountain coast, All is concentrated in a life intense, Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, But hath a part of Being, and a sense Of that which is of all Creator and Defence. Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt In solitude, where we are least alone; A truth, which through our being then doth melt, And purifies from self: it is a tone, The soul and source of Music, which makes known Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm Like to the fabled Cytherea’s zone, Binding all things with beauty;—’twould disarm The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm. –George Gordon, Lord Byron Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage Canto the Third Stanzas 89 & 90 Morgan Harmison, soprano David Perry, clarinet Esther Visser, violin Brett Hodgdon, piano Recorded live in concert, 8 August 2008 Aspen Music Festival and School Aspen, Colorado | |||
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Three Myths for Solo Bassoon |
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Each movement of this work is based on a Greek myth, as summarized below (freely adapted from Ingri and Edgar Parin D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths): I. Narcissus The handsome youth Narcissus saw his own image in a pool of water, and fell in love with himself. He was so enamored that he forgot to eat or drink, and eventually faded away, leaving behind a beautiful flower. The nymph Echo, who had loved him from afar, grieved his death until she too faded away, with only her voice remaining, forever repeating the words of others. II. Sisyphus Sisyphus, king of Corinth, having frustrated the god Zeus in his pursuit of Aegina, daughter of Asopus, and tricking Hades into letting him return to world of the living, was finally condemned to push a boulder to the top of a hill, only to see it fall down the other side. He would push the boulder up the hill again, and see it fall, continuing his labor for eternity. III. Apollo and Daphne Apollo, the god of music, fell in love with the nymph Daphne and chased her through a forest. Terrified, she sought to escape from him, and called out to her father, the river-god Ladon, who transformed her into a beautiful laurel tree. Having lost Daphne, Apollo took some twigs from the tree and made a crown for himself, so as to remember the nymph he loved. Pascal Gallois, bassoon Recorded live in concert, 31 October 2008 Boyer College of Music, Temple University Philadelphia, PA | |||
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Fredericksburg |
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Fredericksburg was inspired by the events of the Civil War battle of the same name. A summary of those events, as well as its aftermath as recalled by one Union soldier, follow: In November of 1862 General Ambrose Burnside began to lead the Army of the Potomac to Richmond, Virginia, with the intent of seizing the Confederate capital. Burnside’s strategy included a detour through the town of Fredericksburg, Virginia, which would place his forces on a direct route to Richmond. As it happened, the army ended up stalled at the side of the Rappahannock River to the east of Fredericksburg, waiting for pontoon bridges to arrive. When they finally did, General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was already arrayed on the land rising to the west of the town, with Lieutenant General James Longstreet’s division stationed at the part of the elevation called Marye’s Heights. On December 13 Major General Edwin Sumner’s division attempted to take the heights, advancing across a half mile-long field towards a stone wall at the base of the slope. None of them made it even that far: a hail of gunfire from both Longstreet’s artillery and Confederate troops positioned behind the wall repulsed the charge. Four more charges were staved off, leaving the field strewn with dead and dying Union troops. Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who commanded the 20th Maine Regiment, recalled the night after the battle in a memoir published in 1887: But out of that silence from the battle’s crash and roar rose new sounds more appalling still; a strange ventriloquism of which you could not locate the source, a smothered moan, a wail so far and deep and wide, as if a thousand discords were flowing together into a key note—weird, unearthly, terrible to hear and bear, yet startling with its nearness. The writhing concord broken by cries for help, some begging for a drop of water, some calling on God for pity, and some on friendly hands to finish what the enemy had so horribly begun. Some with delirious, dreamy voices murmuring loved names, as if the dearest were bending over them ... and underneath, all the time, that deep, bass note from closed lips, too hopeless or too heroic to articulate their agony. The following night, as Union troops dug graves for their fallen comrades, the Northern Lights appeared in the sky; Chamberlain recalled this too in his memoir: “We will give them a starlight burial,” it was said; but heaven ordained a more sublime illumination. As we bore them in dark and sad procession, their own loved North took up the escort and lifting her glorious lights, led the triumphal march over the bridge that spans the worlds. Fiery lances and banners of blood and flame, columns of pearly light, garlands and wreaths of gold—all pointing upward and beckoning on. Who would not pass on as they did, dead for their country’s life, and lighted to burial by the meteor splendors of their native sky? In all, the Federals lost 12,653 men in the battle; the Confederates 4,201. Though it was certainly a Union defeat, the Confederates could not claim to have destroyed the Army of the Potomac, and the conflict that consumed the nation was to drag on for another two years, ultimately claiming the lives of over 600,000 men. The horror of the loss of human life was perhaps best put by Lee himself, as he watched the Union men fall in droves at Fredericksburg: “It is well that war is so terrible—we should grow too fond of it.” Let eternal light shine on them Lord, Recorded live in concert, 9 November 2007 | |||
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Fantasia |
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I conceived my Fantasia as a character study of sorts: in this case, the violin soloist searches for definition, a sense of completeness; the drama of the piece is derived from the constant frustration of this goal. This struggle is announced in the first minute of the piece, when the legato, falling line of the violin is suddenly interrupted by two chords in the piano, each a group of two sixteenth notes, marked “harshly” in the score. The chords serve as a motive for the rest of the work, a force the soloist must reckon with and attempt to overcome. At times the violin and piano sound like they are in this struggle together, playing the motive in a rhythmic unison, arid exchanging a rising sixteenth note arpeggio in a passage directly preceding the second, more lyrical theme. Finally, however, the violin is left on its own, playing a cadenza that recapitulates a number of previously heard melodic ideas. This effort eventually exhausts itself, with the violin falling to a low B, while the piano makes its foreboding re-entry. The two-note motive reappears in the final measures of the piece, leaving the question open as to whether the struggle was won by the soloist, or if it was in fact a fruitless effort, thus leaving the music on a note of despair. Vladimir Dyo, violin Mark Livshits, piano Recorded live in concert, 18 November 2009 Boyer College of Music, Temple University Philadelphia, PA | |||
©2009 by David Carpenter
All Rights Reserved
David Carpenter is a member of Society of Composers, Inc. SCI is dedicated to the promotion of composition, performance, understanding and dissemination of new and contemporary music.