Mathias and the Storm for Orchestra
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There is a piece of folklore that is pervasive in my hometown of Dubuque, Iowa. It is an anecdote that many Dubuquers learn in grade school as it has passed from generation to generation. The story, which weaves historical fact together with fantastical imagery, goes as follows. Mathias Loras, a priest originally from France, was appointed the first bishop of Dubuque in 1837 and arrived in the town two years later. He was a man of prayer and was deeply devoted to his new Iowan diocese, so much so that he climbed to the top of one of the tallest bluffs in Dubuque and prayed that the city would never be subjected to the wrath of a tornado. Since that time, and despite being in the heart of Tornado Alley, the City of Dubuque has never been decimated by a cyclone. Be it pure happenstance or that Loras did indeed pray that the city be spared, this story has a continuing presence in Dubuque folklore, despite there being no known source that corroborates this tale. Mathias and the Storm is a fanciful take on this story. In my imagining of it, Loras is shouting his prayer atop the bluff in the midst of a raging thunderstorm. Thunder bellows, rain pours, lightning illuminates the darken heavens, and Loras, filled with intense passion for his new home, quells the storm through sheer fortitude and steadfast prayer. The piece begins in the midst of the storm. Frantic lines in the stings and woodwinds allude to the swirling wind and mighty rain. Short melodic fragments representing Loras’s first feeble attempts to pray. These fragments gradually elongate, while they continually strive to overtake the frenetic texture of the storm. As both ideas reach a climax, Loras’s prayer is finally heard in its entirety as the brass section overpowers the rest of the orchestra. Once the storm subsides, the prayer is reiterated in a substantially subdued mood over a quiet, almost static string palette as the piece fades into a distance. This work was commissioned by and written for William Intriligator and the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra.
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Abstract -- Acknowledgements -- Mathias and the storm -- References -- Vita
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D.M.A.