Fragments of a Lost Mind - (SSAATTBB Solo Voices)

Duration: 15'

Program Notes:

Fragments of a Lost Mind began as a study in extended techniques for the voice, and how they can be used in ensemble with one another. Throughout the piece, there are several different ways of singing that are uncommon in normal choral repertoire. It seeks to express different places one’s mind can be in during different periods in one’s life. Each movement is titled based on a word relating to glass, hearkening back to how each one is meant to be a fragment of a larger whole.

The first movement, Stained, shows a moment of pause and reflection, as well as a realization of the current state of one’s life. The second, Shattered, is a feeling of loneliness and hopelessness based in past realizations. Reflected is looking back and seeing your life, and taking time to learn who you truly are, and Refracted is taking that knowledge gained and applying it to your life, allowing you to grow.

The Madman

By Friedrich Nietzsche (1882)

Trans. Walter Kauffman (Public Domain)

(Paraphrased in score)

Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward,

forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down?

Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing?

Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not

become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us?

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In Lonesomeness

By Friedrich Nietzsche

Trans. Herman Scheffauer (Public Domain)

The cawing crows

Townwards on whirring pinions roam;

Soon come the snows—

Thrice happy now who hath a home!

Fast-rooted there,

Thou gazest backwards—oh, how long!

Thou fool, why dare

Ere winter come, this world of wrong?

This world—a gate

To myriad deserts dumb and hoar!

Who lost through fate

What thou hast lost, shall rest no more.

Now stand’st thou pale,

A frozen pilgrimage thy doom,

Like smoke whose trail

Cold and still colder skies consume.

Fly, bird, and screech,

Like desert-fowl, thy song apart!

Hide out of reach,

Fool! In grim ice thy bleeding heart.

Firmly let us plant our feet,

Ne’er can we give up this game—

From the distance what doth greet?

One death, one happiness, one fame.