iij [2004]

for chorus [3S, 6A, 6T, 3B or multiples]

duration :: 4’

Written for the Fairfax (VA) Choral Society

First performance :: Fairfax Choral Society — St. Thomas More Cathedral, Arlington, VA, 20 November 2005

iij is based on the “Benedictus” of Claudio Monteverdi’s Messe a quattro voci da cappella, published posthumously in 1650. The present work is a reflection on the strict, repeating three-part form of the Monteverdi, with its curiously weightless harmonic structure (g minor-D major; d minor-A major; g minor-D major) underpinning a simple descending melody; it consists of three pairs of identically structured, though differently proportioned, “chord progressions.”

Virtually every pitch in iij is taken directly from this “Benedictus,” but that is almost beside the point; rather, I have attempted to isolate and restate the striking formal aura of the Monteverdi, filtering it through my own compositional praxis of expanding and contracting proportional structures. Some of the held chords and silences are “too long,” creating a tension that inflects and underscores the beautiful disorientation borrowed from Monteverdi’s original.

The title is the indication used in medieval and pre-medieval chant manuscripts to signify three-fold repetition, e.g. of a Kyrie chant; the text is simply a threefold repetition of the word “Benedictus”.