Red

This piece is related to Edgar Allan Poe’s tale The Masque of the Red Death, set in the closed palace of prince Prospero where people are partying and dancing, while a terrible pestilence is infuriating outside. A pendulum clock can be heard from seven rooms of the palace, decorated with different colors. Death will make its appearance eventually, and kill everybody. My piece Red is a lyrical reflection on the human body, the passing of time, the qualities of space, and the unpredictable manifestation of death. Breaths and sighs, frantic movements and slow transitions, “tick-tocks” and bells, snippets of songs and distant cries can be heard throughout the piece. My personal homage to a friend who died is also included, in the form of several quotations of a late medieval cantus firmus titled O beate Sebastiane: in this tenor, liberation from plague is petitioned.