“Threnody for Two Million Lost Souls” for amplified string quartet

*Named finalist for 2021 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award*

Since the early months of 2020, the world’s collective psyche has been imbued with pure negativity – fear, grief, anger – because of the COVID-19 pandemic. I was no exception. The profound feelings I have experienced as a result of the disease, seeing over two million innocent people die as a result of incompetent world leadership and utter denial of the situation’s severity, are inexpressible. The closest I could get to conveying these emotions was through producing, in short, the most unpleasant piece I could. I sought to create large sound masses, predominantly using the least “comfortable” intervals (half-steps, whole steps, tritones) between voices and higher harmonics in order to produce harsh atonality. The piece opens with, and returns multiple times to a near-identical refrain, which diminishes in volume as it reappears. This is meant to signify first anger, and gradually, sorrow. Between these refrains are various motivic explorations, one in particular which utilizes the voices of the string players themselves. They shout and whisper “killed!” as both an angry eulogy to those killed by the virus, and an indictment of those responsible for allowing it to spread. Others feature a collection of glissandos, used to mimic the sonic patterns of wailing and weeping. In order to replicate these sounds, I recorded myself imitating crying and analyzed the tonal vectors of the recording, then transferred those vectors into each part. The piece’s climax is a rhythmic section, which features droning on an ascending chromatic pattern over intense tremolo and pizzicato lines. Here I utilize rallentandos and ritards in order to push and pull the tempo, imbuing this section with an ethos of “falling apart,” much like a machine breaking down.

The semantic choice of “Lost Souls” is meant to imply the innocence of those who have died from COVID-19. The strings are amplified in order to produce harmonics and pizzicato tones at high volumes.

Violin: Clara Kim, Giancarlo Latta
Viola: Carrie Frey
Cello: Issei Herr

Image: Max Klinger, "Plague" (1903)