Monograph for Orchestra

2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, 2 percussion, harp, piano, strings

Year composed: 2018

Duration: 8'

Though Monograph For Orchestra was written for the Arapahoe Philharmonic's holiday concert, I forwent writing something that sounded festive. The piece is centered around a small figure moving through the orchestra over an ostinato. The ostinato is an homage to the ostinato in Night Flight, the second movement of Samuel Barber’s second symphony—a piece rarely performed or mentioned. Though Monograph is in the user friendly 4/4 time signature, the ostinato was written to obscure the beat. The use of this technique was influenced by a challenge a friend gave his students. (The challenge was to listen to a certain piece of music and guess the time signature.)

Monograph went through four revisions. Seeing that the first, third, and fourth sketches lacked the appeal I sought, I returned to the second and decided to develop it into the work’s final draft. Because of this, I came close to naming it "Second Monograph for Orchestra" but reverted to prevent confusion. The work’s name is a second homage to another of Barber’s works, Essay for Orchestra which, like Monograph, stands alone as a one movement work.