The Dark Process
This sample is taken from my album, Prelude. Click here for more information.
This score is currently under revision
Duration: 18:00
Instrumentation: Full orchestra
Performance notes: This is the first large work (theme and variations form) that I ever attempted to write, and it therefore carries the minor flaws that go with a person’s earliest work. Although there is very little technically wrong with it and very playable, some passages are very difficult simply because I was not mature enough to keep in mind the limits of each section of the orchestra. Although an advanced orchestra could most certainly play it, some passages approach the limits of the orchestra’s practical capabilities. All this to say; this is a very difficult piece. However, the quality of the sound and philosophical thought it creates may be well worth the effort it would take to prepare it.
Musical interpretation: I wrote this to reflect part of my opinion of atheism and essentially to depict the book of Ecclesiastes (save the ending). The theme depicts a pointless beginning of a life or a community attempting to find a purpose in the suffering they have to endure in life. Variation I depicts struggle and slaughter at the hands of the injustice due to there being nothing in control outside of the physical realm. Some may say that this happens in the world God or no God, and they are correct. But then variation II represents restless and bodiless souls (or the memory of them if you prefer) that are weeping at their pointless and recently terminated physical existence that are deprived of justice beyond the grave. Since there was no purpose to their life, there was no purpose to their end and therefore no reason or means for justice. They are quickly forgotten about as a new generation takes their place full of hope and optimism. But Variation III depicts the quick and pointless decay of time which decimates the bodies of the new generation, ending in a final slaughter of any hope for anyone’s survival. The Dark Process refers to this never ending cycle of death that has to be part of the atheist’s world view. “For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten… never again will they have a part in anything that happens under he sun.”
My intention for this work is to be intuitively philosophical and is not to be overanalyzed in any way, so don’t be tempted to assign meaning to every note. Rather enjoy it as music, and allow your mind to wonder into the philosophy naturally.
A full synthetic realization of this work can be found in Prelude.