I first learned of the composer Ingram Marshall, who died on May 31 at the age of 80, as a campus personality. Compassionate and slightly spectral, he slipped into the Yale University Music Library, where I studied work as an undergraduate and helped find scores and recordings. I already knew some of his work and was a little awe of chatting with their creators. His musical and real personality seemed to be directly related. You are more likely to follow a series of thoughts than to pursue a laid-back, laid-back, rigorous discussion, but you are not afraid to take the conversation seriously or philosophically.
While studying with Marshall in graduate school, our conversation expanded. His teaching method was clearly not rigorous, but it was controversial and inclusive. In the lesson, as much as I analyzed what I was working on, I could discuss Bergman movies and the best ways to cook wild mushrooms. In most cases he was happy to leave my music as I wrote it. At one point he pointed out a passage and said, “I like that part, it may last longer.” He encouraged me to take the time to focus on my thoughts and spot them.
Marshall has become a friend — it was just a great hang and it was endlessly entertaining to talk to. He drove to Sleeping Giant State Park, north of New Haven, Connecticut, hiked along the river, and went further into the countryside looking for morels and chanterelles in his secret location. He briefly collaborated with the composition student. He treated us as colleagues and as a result we were not afraid to speak openly around him.
Around the same time, I began to feel great joy in playing Marshall music, especially piano solo songs.Genuine existence“(2002).Spectacular fantasia In the tradition of Schubert and Chopin, It is full of contradictions and unexplained things. Rhythmic language swings between a persistent pulse and complete freedom. Sometimes a phrase is like a series of sentences. Elsewhere, they are poetic and rhetorical, full of pauses and hesitation. The music looks simple on the page, with almost no mysterious signs. Not only is it difficult for an interpreter to form his or her own idea, but it is also a respectful gesture that entrusts the music to the care of the performer. “Genuine existence” Somehow heavy, ephemeral, non-magnificent, its execution is modest, yet not afraid of dramatic gestures.
These qualities, a constant Marshall style throughout his career, have made his voice one of the most personal and unique composers of recent memory. He built a monolith of sound and obscured them, as it is unlikely that the form of loose stream of consciousness would blend with old-fashioned counterpoint techniques. He woven elaborate textures from canons, flips, stretches, and shrinks. Inspired by his gamelan, the arpeggio gently undulates in and out of the sun and shadows. Frequent citations and references give the music a sense of porosity and variability. Everything coexists in a place that feels like a physical acoustic space. Rich and reverberant, but far away and seen in thick fog. Above all, it has an emotional taste. For him, music wasn’t just an abstraction, it was an intellectual game of pitch and form. It was also a sincere expression of something.
In much the same way, the use of Marshall’s technology wasn’t for itself. He evaluated the gear only to the extent that he could achieve musical and expressive results. Spacious”Step-by-step requiem” A unique ensemble of piano, mandolin, synthesizer, Balinese flute, pre-recorded choir, and 8-channel tape delay, composed in the late 1970s, blends electronic and acoustic elements into a sound design as a composition. Guide your listeners on a calm and epic musical journey. Seamlessly cushion and wrap each other. This Requiem creates a sacred space without words, layering layers of reverberation and delay to build an infinitely large cathedral around the music.
Much of the music closest to Marshall’s heart was sacred: New England Shape Note Song, Bruckner Motet, Javanese and Bali Gamelan Music. Although he grew up as a Methodist choir boy, his own beliefs are equally diverse and unique, and his work has a deep spirituality. Sadness is repeated to accept death and may even find a kind of ecstatic joy in its expectations. “Bright Hour Delayed”, “Hypnosis delay“ (1997) takes a noisy holy harp chant.Northfield“ The theme is: “Savior, how long and how long will this bright time be delayed?” Marshall slows it down four times, broadens his voice, brings the melody to the air, and is as far away as a musical question mark. It echoes in.
of “Kingdom is coming“ (1997), Sadness becomes a kind of ritual, connecting individuals to a universal pool of human sorrow. The song begins with a chain of A minor chords, spirals upwards (see Marshall’s beloved Sibelius), and drifts downwards in a slow, painful, sore mourning. We land in a deeply muddy stew in F major, from which a fragment of “Lord, approaching forgiveness” emerges. (Another composer who used that hymn, Charles Ives, is a clear reference point. Marshall and I are fellow New Englishmen, especially those who combine seemingly different elements into a powerful emotional salmagundi. Shared worship of their abilities.) “Kingdom Come” is a slow-motion procession of mourners’ choruses. Despite its problematic effects and some shocking explosions, it’s not historical music. It always looks inward when looking for associations, hints, and meanings.
The eclectic approach to Marshall’s composition appealed to me. I felt that I found a mentor who was involved in music as I wanted, such as curiosity, forgiveness, consideration for historical times and genres. He gave the impression that all the music is at our feet in a huge mountain and is a feed for inspiration. That doesn’t mean he didn’t like everything or wasn’t critical. He could frankly deny a composer who thought he was overly academic, technically flashy, or too enthusiastic. But his default approach to life and music was one of generosity.
People who knew him often noticed that Marshall appeared to be egoles. He did not strive, network, or self-promote in the way my generation of artists were trained to do so. Of course, he had an ego. Because he has to pursue artistic crafts. He was able to keep it nicely separated from his personal interactions. He didn’t strive for fame and good luck, but he certainly wanted wider praise. On his blog The old man in the forestIn 2013, he lamented the “minor” commission he was getting. “There is nothing substantive, and there are only a few chambers and solo works. Frankly, it’s kind of depressing that no major work is underway on the drawing board.”
The cause of frustration was not always external. He was a slow and painstaking writer, sometimes working on his work for years before shaping it into a shape he was happy with. But after doing this, he was overjoyed to hear his music and was justly proud to feel that it was his most successful work. And in his own funny and quiet way, he enjoyed the attention and affirmation of his creative struggle.A few months ago I Interviewed about his work Marshall was excited by Joshua Weilerstein’s music podcast. “I loved all that praise,” he wrote to me by email. (Wylerstein conducted my piano concerto “Blind Banister” in 2015.)
In 2016, Marshall said he wanted to write something for me. Probably a concerto. I immediately called his old friend and solid champion John Adams. John Adams fought for a request from the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. following year,”flow, ”The Chamber Concerto appeared and seemed to capture everything from Marshall’s voice. As the hilarious hymns gain momentum in a canonic way, the work begins with a stagnation in beautiful C major. Then the series of escalating ruminants in another hymn “Shall We Gather at the River?” Is initially a solo viola, becoming a fiery orchestra tutti. Then suddenly we are in Indonesia. Piano and percussion are leapfrogging with packy and energetic music, just like Marshall has ever written. Pentatonic arpeggios are stacked on multiple keys. The polytonal roar escalate and evaporate. Marshall worked on the last page. When the final revision arrived a few days before the premiere, I realized that the closing note was a quote from his own piano piece.In the river“I dedicated it to him in 2011.
Of the many vague and unrecorded works in Marshall’s catalog, my favorite is Emily Dickinson’s “Grief-like” setting. Especially because I feel it’s almost a secret. Marshall was never completely happy with the song and couldn’t fix it. Her last line, “Our Summer Missed Her Light / Into the Beautiful,” is extended to five iterations, gently rocking between C and F, the simplest code you can imagine. increase. In just a minute, it conveys a timeless sensation and is nearing the end of time. But the song doesn’t end with a fade-out. The last gesture is amazing. A sudden vivid cascade from both ends of the keyboard toward the center, a carillon from the other side. That “bright time” that has been delayed for a long time has finally arrived.
