ALAN PAGE: REQUIEM FOR A GAY CHRISTIAN SUICIDE (mvts 3-end) TRILOGY OF LOSS NO.3- LIFE

"Requiem For A Gay Christian suicide" (1991-98) forms the concluding segment of my Trilogy. It is scored for a small ensemble comprising Tenor, Basset Horn, Piano and 2 invisible Flutes (on either side and slightly above the audience). There is also a role for an actor dressed as priest who gives the sermon and the reading.

The piece had its origins in a story about an evangelical teen who eventually killed himself after trying fruitlessly to reconcile his natural inclinations to what was expected of him. His father went on record saying "We think its what God wanted for him."

The movements are as follows:

1) Dedication (for Tenor solo) - a setting of A.E Housman's "Shot? So quick so clean an ending?"

2) Prayer (for basset horn and invisible flute)

3) Sermon (based on another poem by Housman) given by the "priest".

4) Nocturne "The Dark Night Of The Soul " (Piano solo)

5) Reading (Housman's "Easter Hymn") Priest

6) And These Lights Shall Never Fade (for 2 invisible flutes).

The staging is as follows: Piano
Tenor Basset Horn Priest



Flute One Audience Flute Two

During the final movement, the onstage ensemble are to pack up their instruments and sod off to the pub (noisily if possible (within reason) leaving the audience with just the stage set and the Flutes playing.

The actor playing the priest should "play up" the Sermon (my two preferences are either unctuous Anglican (as I tried to do here) or fiery fundamentalist) but is to give the second reading in his natural voice.

The ideal acoustic for this piece would be a church one although the work's content works against that. I should also confess that, essentially, being an amateur, I have not had official clearence to use the Housman poems as I have here and, I guess, at some point this video will have to come down.

The work owes its lengthy gestation to the Piano piece which gave me no end of trouble. My original plans was for a movement called "Sanctus" which would come piling in with a series of harsh dissonances, but I couldn't think of where to take it from there. The "Nocturne" was a separate piano piece altogether (influenced by Manley Hopkins' "I wake and feel the fell of dark not day") but the more I thought about it, the righter it seemed that this should be its natural home.

The "Requiem" also marked the end of that spurt of musical creativity that had been with me since I was about 9. The final flute farewell here was also pretty much my own as, it seemed, whatever spark there was had vanished and I could produce nothing but empty cadences and meaningless phrases. Only in 2010 did I produce something I felt reflected something new for me to say.

However even if (as seems likely) I shall never write another note, I am proud of this Trilogy of mine and I hope others will enjoy it as well.

As to performers on this recording, the majority are me. The two flautists were a very kind pair of players I happened upon in Iffley Church Oxford one afternoon and they kindly played the piece through for me as it was intended and then recorded it for me the next day. Sadly the piece of paper I have their names on is buried in a box in the attic at the moment but I wish to express my warmest gratitude to them.

N.B. This represents what has been recorded of the "Requiem", the first two movements await performance. We start here with the sermon.

Category:

Music

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