for two tenor saxophones, trombone, electric guitar, piano, and percussion
Ian Briffa and Uday Singh, tenor saxophones; Talia Berenbaum, trombone/harmonica; Parker Callister, electric guitar; Kou Muramatsu, piano; Andrew Bockman, percussion. Premiered in Hatch Recital Hall, Eastman School of Music, Rochester, NY 9/18/23. Conducted by Lukas Poeppel.
CANTOS is a piece that implements the narrative of Dante’s Inferno as a pseudo-episodic structure. It begins with an entity straddling consciousness and death, a concept inspired by one of the opening scenes in the 2009 Gaspar Noé film, Enter The Void. The work then follows a tour through the concentric levels of hell as Dante is introduced to them by Virgil. The various musical sections throughout are inspired by what is encountered at each individual level. This includes squanderers jousting with great weights, sinners trapped in tombs of fire, the swampy, stinking waters of the river Styx, as well as the actively wrathful wrestling above the water while the passive lie motionless underneath the surface. Microtonal harmonies and saxophone multiphonics are used in various sections along with slow glissandi to instill a sense of unease and instability. Percussive, polyrhythmic dirges performed by the piano and percussion fade in and out along the way, evoking the distant levels that Dante can hear but not yet see. Distorted guitar and shrieking altissimo notes in the saxophone reflect the eternal punishment the sinners are facing. As the work progresses, similarities begin to show up between formal sections. The hierarchical order of these punishments begins to fade away as the structure reveals itself to be much more cyclical than previously thought. Hell encompasses all.
“Because your question searches for deep meaning, I shall explain in simple words”
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno
Parker Callister 