Musical Art
There is a deep-seated tension in Holy Saturday. For Jesus’ disciples, it was not a day of joy but of confusion, sorrow, dismay. For a Christian, living after the fact, it is a quiet day at the end of Lent, a day that stands between the solemn remembrance of our Lord’s death and our joyous, even raucous celebration of his resurrection. It is a quiet day. But it is also a day of anticipation: We know what is coming. What is coming is resurrection. What is coming is the ringing of bells and voices shouting “Alleluia!” as the church acclaims its risen Lord.
The disciples knew none of that. They had no hope because they did not understand what their Lord had said to them. They were in darkness, and they had not, as far as they understood it, seen a great light. They had seen: death.
In writing this piece, I tried to convey that sense through the texture of the music. The motif I chose for this is the steady ticking away of a clock. An anachronism, to be sure. They had no such clock. But it conveys well the sense for us. The steady thump thump thump of the instruments conveying the steady tick tick tick of a clock: one second, after another, after another, in a day that seems it will go on and on and on and what comes next we know not. And I have written it as a steady pedal tone: no motion whatsoever.
It simply sits. It stays. It waits. It waits. It waits, it knows not what for. Because that is what they waited for: They knew not.
And yet: this is a work addressed to an audience that is not confused disciples on the day between the days, but to Christians. It cannot be only stasis. It cannot be only darkness and despair. It must also hint at hope.
So it must somehow convey both the creeping dread they experienced: Are we next? Will we die crucified as well? And even if not, where do we go from here? But also, our sense of what is coming tomorrow: those bells ringing, those shouted alleluias, the feast after. The melodic and harmonic motion cannot, and so do not, convey purely grief and darkness or hopeful expectancy and coming light. They mingle.
When the piece ends, it has the sound of the “Amen” at the end of a hymn… but with the motion clearly rising. Easter Sunday is coming.
I hope you enjoy it, and I would love to hear your thoughts on it!