Announcing the release of my latest album, AGAINST WAR, featuring soprano Lisa Rombach and conductor Marek Štilec leading the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice. The album features music from my MUSIC FOR PEACE PROJECT. It begins with DECLARATION OF PEACE for chamber orchestra, followed by AGAINST WAR and EVERYTHING PASSES for soprano and chamber orchestra.

Coming of age in the ’60s, I absorbed in my core a belief that peace was possible. In that small instant of time, it did seem to an optimistic and naïve teenager, that the millions of voices protesting in the streets, energized by rock and roll, could make a difference. The young would take over from the old and make the world a better place. Of course, it didn’t turn out that way – and it never has. Revolutionaries become what they seek to replace. Despite the discouraging tone of these words, I still harbor an inner faith that music possesses a power to reach into the hearts and minds of those who are listening and influence them for the better. With that thought in mind, much of my music was written to encourage thoughts about the possibility of peace. Yes, much martial music has been composed over the centuries to stir up the passions of soldiers to go to war – but music also has the power to elevate, to bring peace to troubled spirits, to light the path to an inner space that is free of anger and strife. Over the years, I have composed a great deal of music intended to encourage thoughts about the possibility of peace – and this album is my first recording from that project with works composed over the past several years.

DECLARATION OF PEACE. Somewhere in the world, there is a war going on, always. Declared or not. If I had the power to wish it, I would simply declare peace, and leave it at that, for all time, putting an end to senseless wars. Not having that power, I’m left to imagine it, creating my own musical declaration.

AGAINST WAR. A suite of songs for voice and orchestra setting some powerful poems I found in the anthology Poets Against the War. The poems were written in response to a, so to speak, call to arms, by poets protesting against the decision to invade Iraq and the anthology was published in 2003. Doing something with these poems had been in the back of my mind for many years. The music is dedicated to the 11,000 or so poets who responded to the call and contributed their words and thoughts to Poets Against the War in the hope that reason would prevail over reaction. If only their effort had prevailed back then, the world would be in a better place today – but fear, hysteria and war mongering ruled the day. In our current times, their words still ring true – and are needed more than ever.

EVERYTHING PASSES. This music started off in one direction, but then reading a brief poem by Peter Levitt turned it in another direction entirely. A gentle poem, read during the same week that the world’s attention was turned to the mass shootings of innocent people in two cities in the United States, it’s imagery of petals falling like past lives, struck home – and became the theme of this symphony.

CREDITS:

Composer: Stanley Grill
Soprano: Lisa Rombach
Conductor: Marek Štilec
Orchestra: Komorni filharmonie Pardubice
Producer: Jiri Štilec
Recording Engineer: Vaclav Roubal

Listen to AGAINST WAR on Bandcamp

Happily sharing a link to an interview with Interlude’s Maureen Buja.  A conversation about my latest album, DIE ERSTE ELEGIE, and other recent musical activities.

 

Sighs and Cries – An Interview with Stanley Grill

Announcing the release of my latest album, DIE ERSTE ELEGIE, featuring soprano Lisa Rombach and conductor Marek Štilec leading the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice. The album begins with SYMPHONY OF SIGHS, an addition to my MUSIC FOR UKRAINE series, followed by a five movement symphonic setting of the first of Rainer Maria Rilke’s famous Duino Elegies.

 

SYMPHONY OF SIGHS.  Composed in response to Russia’s horrific invasion of Ukraine, a series of musical sighing gestures evolved into this single movement symphony.  Unable to change the course of events, instead I sat at home crying notes.

DIE ERSTE ELEGIE.  It is Rilke, more so than any other poet with whom I am familiar, who writes about the invisible world around us. Other poets describe the beauties (or the terrors) of the world we can see, but Rilke uses words that may be rooted in that world only to leave it and open a door beyond that to what we cannot fathom. Although I do not believe that angels, in the ordinary meaning of that word, exist, I had an immediate visceral, gut acceptance of Rilke’s words when I read “Every Angel is terrifying.” It reminded me of my love of studying stars when I was a child, and the terror that I felt when I began to understand, in a small way, the immeasurably vast distances between stars and how minute in comparison to the scale of the universe we all are (despite our species’ limitless capacity for self-aggrandizement). That terrifying realization put a quick end to that line of study for me. And he does, at least to my understanding, clearly describe how in the face of that vastness, humans shut themselves down, to shield themselves from the enormity of what surrounds us in order to protect ourselves. His opening line of the first elegy so powerfully expresses this – “Who, if I cried out would hear me among the Angels’ Orders? and even if one of them pressed me suddenly to his heart: I’d be consumed in his more potent being.”

But, more than an expression of humanity’s relationship to the infinite, invisible world, the poems are elegies – laments for the dead. But it is not just the dead that concern Rilke, but the relationship that the living have to those who have left the world of the living. The perhaps inevitable result of the too early death of my own father, this subject has never been far from my mind. How it is that we can bear such grief of loss is at the heart of these poems. While most people seem to me to find ways to ignore their mortality, or push it down to some deep place where they can avoid thinking about it, that has never been the case for me. And, as I grow older, it becomes still harder to ignore. The division between the living and dead is always present for me, and that, perhaps, is the thing that attracts me to Rilke’s ten elegies.

Composer: Stanley Grill

Soprano: Lisa Rombach

Conductor: Marek Štilec

Orchestra: Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice

Producer: Jiri Štilec

Recording Engineer: Vaclav Roubal

 

Listening links to stream DIE ERSTE ELEGIE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BRIDGE, a symphonic fantasy for viola & orchestra, inspired by the 15 poems in the American poet Hart Crane’s epic poem of America.

A small, blue edition of Hart Crane’s masterpiece has been living in my library for decades. The thought of doing something musically with it popped into mind now and then, but I never quite mustered the courage to do anything with it.  However, during the early days of coronavirus driven isolation, when the importance of human connectedness, so aptly symbolized by the image of the Brooklyn Bridge, had been driven home by a tiny virus, the time had come.

For those so inclined, read the poem. The Bridge, over the course of its 15 chapters, is an attempt to capture the essence of America in the 1920s, as Crane experienced it. I think he succeeded in capturing the complexities of America – from its violent beginnings as the culture of native Americans was crushed by expanding European cultures to the crass commercialism that erupted at the turn of the century (and still exists, in spades, today), tempered by the buoyant optimism and hope for mankind in spirits like Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson and the American transcendentalists. But above all, the poem relies upon the Brooklyn Bridge as a symbol of connectedness, spanning the myriad of events across time and geography that culminate in what America is today.

Crane’s poem attempted perhaps too much.  The span of the Brooklyn Bridge became a symbol of everything connected to everything else – the past to the present, urban America to rural America, a vast dream of America from its pre-European existence to the bustling America of big, industrial cities and great railroads spanning the continent.

In this music, the solo viola, in its middle range, spans between the musical soundscapes that represent the images evoked by the poem.  It reaches between the low and high instruments, between the dark, swirling eddies of water beneath the bridge to the searing sunlight, piercing the harp-like cables of the bridge, while seagulls soar overhead.  It also is the voice of the poem’s protagonist, seeking redemption in a violent and crassly commercial world.

Scattered, like leaves, in the music, are musical apparitions from the past – a fragment of a melody from a court composer to Ferdinand and Isabella, a made-up Irish gig, American folk tunes, bits of jazz and flashes of tunes from the 1920s that Hart Crane would have heard during his days in New York.

CREDITS

COMPOSER: Stanley Grill

VIOLA SOLO:  Brett Deubner

CONDUCTOR: Marek Štilec

ENSEMBLE: Komorní filharmonie Pardubice

PRODUCER: Jiří Štilec

RECORDING ENGINEER: Václav Roubal

RECORDING DATES: September 19-21, 2022

RECORDING LOCATION: Dům hudby, Sukova třída 1260, 530 21 Pardubice

RELEASE DATE:  March 31, 2023

Listen on APPLE MUSIC Listen on BANDCAMP Listen on AMAZON MUSIC Listen on YOUTUBE MUSIC Listen on TIDAL Listen on SPOTIFY

GLOBAL MUSIC AWARDS SILVER MEDAL WINNER March 2023

CLOUZINE MAGAZINE BEST CLASSICAL ALBUM FALL 2023

“In this music…Stanley Grill has captured the idiom of the nation well and unmistakably”
PIZZICATO – Remy Franck’s Journal of Classical Music

Read Program Notes for THE BRIDGE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Announcing the upcoming release of my latest album, THE BRIDGE, a fantasy for viola and orchestra inspired by Hart Crane’s epic poem of America. A premiere recording with the brilliant violist, Brett Deubner and the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice conducted by Marek Štilec. Available on streaming sites beginning on March 31, 2023.

A small, blue edition of Hart Crane’s masterpiece had been living in my library for decades. The thought of doing something musically with it popped into mind now and then, but I never quite mustered the courage to embark on such an ambitious project. However, with the onset of the COVID shutdown in early 2020, thoughts about the impact of isolation on everyone across the country and the importance of human connectedness, led me back to that little blue book – and as I re-read its fifteen poems, ideas for a musical portrayal sprang to mind.

For those so inclined, read the poem. It attempts to encapsulate the essence of America in the 1920s, as Crane experienced it, capturing the complexities of American history and American life – from its violent beginnings as the culture of native Americans was crushed by expanding European cultures, to the crass commercialism that erupted at the turn of the century, tempered by the buoyant optimism and hope for mankind in spirits like Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson and the American transcendentalists. Above all, the poem relies upon the Brooklyn Bridge as a metaphor for connection, spanning the myriad of events across time and geography that culminate in what America was like in Crane’s day as well as the promise of its future.

Crane’s poem attempted perhaps too much. The span of the Brooklyn Bridge became a symbol of everything connected to everything else – the past to the present, urban America to rural America, a vast dream of America from its pre-European existence to the bustling America of big, industrial cities and great railroads spanning the continent.

In this music, dedicated to my friend and long-time musical collaborator Brett Deubner, the solo viola is the voice of the Bridge itself, its rich middle range spanning between the low and high instruments, between the dark, swirling eddies of water the flow beneath the Bridge to the searing sunlight piercing the harp-like cables of the Bridge, while seagulls soar overhead. It also is the voice of the poem’s author, seeking redemption in a violent and crassly commercial world.

Reading the poems, it is apparent that Crane had a broad appreciation of music, as frequent references to songs and other music he had heard are to be found in the poems. As I planned out the score, I researched all of his musical references and fragments from those melodies can be found, scattered like leaves throughout the score, like apparitions from the past – a melody from a court composer to Ferdinand and Isabella, an Irish gig, bits of jazz and flashes of tunes from the 1920s.

As Crane, following in the path begun by Walt Whitman and T.S. Eliot, attempted to write the great American poem for his century, THE BRIDGE is my attempt to write a great American symphony, one that speaks to the history and spirit of our country.

Composer: Stanley Grill
Conductor: Marek Štilec
Viola solo: Brett Deubner
Producer: Jiří Štilec
Recording Engineer: Václav Roubal
Graphic Design: Stanley Grill
Orchestra: Komorní filharmonie Pardubice

YouTube video for THE BRIDGE
Stream THE BRIDGE

Two years of isolation at home allowed me the time and mental space to embark on several ambitious projects that, were it not for COVID, I would probably have never even considered doing. The first was taking out my edition of Hart Crane’s epic poem of America, The Bridge, and deciding to do something musically with it. With fifteen poems in the book, it was too long to set the texts, so instead, I wound up writing a symphonic fantasy for viola & orchestra, in fifteen movements, each a musical reflection of one of Hart Crane’s poems.

As the world returns to normal (more or less), I’m working to record the music I wrote during COVID. I started with a recording of a short symphony, AHIMSA, which was released in mid-2022. Last September, with the brilliant violist (and long-time friend and collaborator) Brett Deubner, I went back to the Czech Republic to record THE BRIDGE. With the edited and mixed files arriving this past week, I anticipate being able to release THE BRIDGE as my next album sometime in the spring.

Next up, with soprano Lisa Rombach (who was one of the vocal soloists on my 2022 album collaboration with Pandolfis Consort), I will return to the Czech Republic to record DIE ERSTE ELEGIE, a symphonic setting in five movements of Rilke’s great poem. During the same week, we will record SYMPHONY OF SIGHS, a more recent one movement work composed in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Later in 2023, dates still to be set, I plan on again partnering with Lisa Rombach to record AGAINST WAR, settings of poems by various poets written in protest of the American invasion of Iraq, and EVERYTHING PASSES, settings of Zen poems about the impermanence of life.

And, then, there’s 2024! More to follow…

Thrilled to learn that my album TRANSFIGURATION with violist Brett Deubner was a Global Music Award Silver Medal winner this year. This was the first industry acknowledgement for one of my albums – so progress!