JOHN LIBERATORE
composer

The first time I spoke with South Bend Symphony music director Alastair Willis, we spoke about the excitement surrounding new music.  A new piece, he said, can be anything.  No one can guess the sound of a new piece before the conductor's baton falls. There is nothing quite like that anticipation.  My conversation with Alastair made me think of this excerpt from "The Orchestra" by William Carlos Williams:

 

"The precise counterpart

       of a cacophony of bird calls

             lifting the sun almighty

into his sphere: woodwinds

       clarinet and violins 

              sounding a prolonged A!

Ah! the sun! is about to rise

       and shed his beams

               as he has always done

upon us all ... "

 

Partly in response to this conversation, my own piece tries to preserve that excitement and mystery—a sense that anything can happen.  It moves in many unexpected directions, taking twists and turns that surprised even me as I was writing it.  It opens with a capricious piccolo solo.  The material has no thematic connection to the rest of the piece, but, like the birds who bring about the sunrise, the piccolo culls the orchestra into being.  The orchestra reacts unpredictably at first, sometimes mysteriously, sometimes violently.  But the piece soon settles into a gently rocking section with long, plaintive melodies in the strings.  Then, the piccolo solo returns, playing the role of foil, launching the piece in a new direction. Still, the haunting lines of the previous section make reappearances, first in the solo cello, later in the full orchestra as "the sun sheds his beams."

 I must confess that the title, "The Sun's Pealing Bells," is not mine. When I teach composition, I always insist that students name their original compositions — no "Class Project #1!"  A student came up with this colorful title at the spur of the moment.   I joked that I would use it someday, and he kindly granted me permission to do so.   I found the title evocative on it's own, but especially in connection with the orchestra/sun metaphor as expressed by Williams.  Perhaps a piece with "bells" in the title should have more bell-sounds.  But the image of "the sun's pealing bells" blurs the senses. The bells are seen and felt rather than heard.  Likewise, while music seemingly belongs to the aural domain, it is a medium uniquely capable of exploring that which is between the senses.  It can be experienced—"sensed," and not just heard.