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About the Composer
Jennifer Lucy Cook
Graphite Publishing
Chiaroscuro
An exploration of contrasts and extremes.
for SATB div. choir with opt. bowed crotales
Big, bold, exciting, and packed with imagination, “Chiaroscuro” explores the contrast of light and dark; one cannot have sunshine without casting a shadow. Cook pulls out all of the proverbial stops in regards to choral textures: bold ranges, divisi, extended techniques, changes in key and meter, complex rhythms, dynamics, and more. Like the flame of a candle, bowed crotales add the finishing layer of color and musical interest. “Chiaroscuro” is a musical banquet of choral sounds for choir and audience that they will continue to appreciate in repeated performances.
Composer’s Notes
“Chiaroscuro” literally means “light and shadow” in Italian, and is often used to describe paintings that use extreme contrasts of dark and light. Artists like Caravaggio, da Vinci, and Rembrandt famously employ chiaroscuro techniques, and I am completely captivated by the way these extremes coexist in art to create dramatic beauty.
As always, life imitates art in the way these extremes coexist. Ignoring pain in favor of pleasure is a fool’s errand, just as depicting light without shadow results in blankness. “Any glow that I pursue brings an umbral partner too.”
Throughout this piece, I explore the extremes of dynamic as you’d expect in a piece about contrast. At the same time, not every “light” is consonant, nor is every “shadow” dissonant, just as life’s binaries are not clean cut. In the middle of the piece, the sections of the choir each have repeating patterns, like gears in machine that might produce a glow from a lightbulb. I imagine a dramatic lighting display accompanying the varying textures made by the choir and the bowed crotales, and by the end of “Chiaroscuro” I hope to find a bit more peace with both the light and the shadow.
– Jennifer Lucy Cook
Text
Ah, chiaroscuro
A filament, a wire
The element of fire
A filament, a wire
Hope in sorrow
One is never without the other
Though I favor the brightest color
One is never without the other:
Light and shadow
Light and shadow
Light and shadow
A votive lit with muttered prayer
Charged the current in the air
Electric candles overhead
Lightbulb moment: living dead
A filament, a wire
The element of fire
A filament, a wire
Almost holy
Near the luminous gilded halo
There’s a gloom at the edges waiting
Near the luminous gilded halo
Shadows follow
Minimal, but not alone
A double-sided monochrome
Any glow that I pursue
Brings an umbral partner, too
And though my muscles know the fight,
I cannot sever dark from light
And though my muscles know the fight,
I cannot sever dark from light
I cannot sever dark from light
Ah, chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro
– Jennifer Lucy Cook
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