Bell Carol Fantasy

Janáčkova Filharmonie Ostrava | Stanislav Vavřínek, conductor

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When an orchestra player expressed interest in playing Carol of the Bells as part of a fun December rehearsal, I checked out what arrangements already existed. To me, they all seemed too simple and repetitive, so I set about writing my own. I discovered that the familiar carol has its roots in a traditional folk chant about a swallow bringing a New Year’s message of a plentiful new year, and the title comes from the Ukrainian word for “bountiful.”


I decided to emphasize the sense of bountifulness and I open this arrangement with the familiar bell tune now played slowly and elongated by the low, autumnal clarinets. I let this new “theme of abundance” build and fill out colorfully among the whole orchestra before fading away. The flutes offer a suggestion of birds passing in gentle flight. This theme soon becomes recognizable as the well-known bell motif as the piece launches into the familiar carol tune. To close out the work I bring out the dance energy of the cross rhythms and counter melodies.

"Kim Diehnelt’s “Bell Carol Fantasy” recruits the Janáčkova Filharmonie Ostrava for a particularly moving and pensive delivery of rich strings." -- TAKE EFFECT August 2024

 

Devouring Time for SATB choir

In a contemporary setting of Shakespeare’s sonnet infused with early music traditions of polyphony, modal tendencies, and tone-painting, the ageless poet celebrates the artist’s triumph over time. Composer Kim Diehnelt, 2015

Sonnet 19: Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws

Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,

And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;

Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,

And burn the long-liv'd phoenix in her blood;

Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,

And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,

To the wide world and all her fading sweets;

But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:

O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,

Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;

Him in thy course untainted do allow

For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.

Yet do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong

My love shall in my verse ever live young.

- William Shakespeare

By the Sounds of Things

I recently received the list of winners for a new music competition and I was struck that all of the nine winning works had similar titles.

Every composition had a title referring to a thing (or things). All were nouns. Some were things in nature, such as echo, undercurrents, even bugs. Others were things such as mirrors, points and flourishes.

Why are we enthralled with capturing, creating, and communicating sounds - about things?

I have a hard time relating to this trend to compose music based on things. None of these composers explore the human condition, the inner world, or explore our relationship to time. These works explore our environment and the nature of THINGS.

As a conductor, I would also hesitate to put such music in front of musicians. Asking musicians to dig deep in their soul and search the depth of their musicianship for cicadas seems rude.

What does this say about, well, the judges? The composers? Or us – society?

I noticed, too, our recent “call for scores” for the NSO brought in numerous works ‘painting scenery’ through music. Perhaps a work about rain falling on Crater Lake in the morning, or visual effects of light bouncing off distance mountains. A colleague confirmed that “this is what they are teaching now days in universities.”

Does composing works based on the outer environment somehow justify the use of quasi-tonal languages? Is this a back door of sorts for academia to try to find a way back into the concert hall?

Mind you, I've always thought it rather odd, especially now days, to title a work by its form - yet another thing. 

Calling a piece ‘Symphony’ sounds about as exciting as writing a book and calling it “Novel No. 1.”

And now using labels referring to inanimate items in the world. It doesn't appear that the works are about the sensations evoked by the thing, or our relationship to said mountain, but rather, “this is what this thing is like in sound.”

Are we enthralled with “still life” compositions? “Fruit bowl on wooden table for string quartet?” I hope this is only a passing phase.

I've written enough about how I approach composition, so I’ll throw this out to readers to give me an earful. 

Why are we utilizing the amazingly expressive tool box of music composition to present and engage listeners over THINGS?