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Dream of Oenghus - Is about a prince who has a nightmare every night about a princess, who he falls in love with, yet can never attain. Eventually, upon awakening, he decides to take a journey to find this princess.
Song of Moses, Listen Oh Heaven that I May Speak- This song I believe is a prayer, from the slaves in Egypt, for a savior (our hero Moses) to lead them on a journey from Egypt and slavery to the Promised Land (milk and honey and all that stuff)
Escape from Plato's Cave - This piece is about a group of people who live underground and have never seen the beauties of the world above.
Message of Man (our ballad) - Is about a guy who finds these people and tells them what they are missing from living in a cave.
Escape to the Light - A few of our friends, the cave dwellers, take on the challenge of the Escape and eventually, through noble battle and dark journey, emerge from the shadowy underworld into the light.
It's a journey, starting with our nightmare in Oenghus. We awaken from our nightmare (which is our symbolic darkness) to make a prayer (or resolution if you want to stay away from the religious road) to leave the dark place and to find a better life. The Message of Man is our understanding that the better place (the light) really exists. And Escape to the Light, is our battle with the things which hold us in darkness. Fear, Uncertainty.
The journey from darkness to light is something that people struggle with every day. The Darkness can be anything: Chaos, Insanity, Sickness, Loss, Evil, Racism, The job you hate, A relationship that goes bad, (you fill in the blank). Any personal darkness that people may realize and strive to get to a better place. This is represented by Oengus. Darkness. Confusion. We are lost. Savage...and of course there is the emotional resolve of coming out of the darkness, into light or happiness or recovery or the promise land (Listen O Heavens)... the rest of the show plays off that concept and recapitulates it (Plato's Cave is a true coming out of darkness, physically and spiritually). The closer at the end reiterates the motif again.
"Journey out of the Darkness"
Movement 1 -- Darkness
Movement 2 -- Faith (or Discovery)
Movement 3 -- Escape
Movement 4 -- Rebirth (transformation)
Rolf Rodin was born in Frankfurt/Main (Germany) on December 9, 1961. He studied music education, composition, conducting and theory of music in Frankfurt and Wurzburg. After graduating in composition (1991) and conduction (1992) he lives as a freelance composer and since 1993 he also lectures theory of music at the Frankfurter Musikhochschule. Rulf Rodin held a scholarship of the "Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes" and in 1990/91 was also awarded a scholarship for a six month sojourn in Paris at the Cite Internationale des Arts from the Bavarian Ministry for Cultrual Affairs. Some of his compositions for chamber music, choir and orchestra have won prizes at Germany and international competitions.
The musical poem The Dream of Oenghus refers to the Irish legend of the same name which was edited by Frederik Hetmann in his collection "Irish Magic Garden - Fairy Tales, Legends and Stories from Ireland." The collection was published by the Eugen Diederichs Verlag. In this legend Prince Oenghus has a nightly vision when fast asleep: He sees a girl who plays the flute and falls in love with her. However, as she keeps disappearing she remains unattainable for him for the time being. He consequently set out to search for her until he finally finds the girl. This piece is no musical retelling of this legend, in a way it rather invites reading the story, as there are only single phases and atmospheres of the legend serving as extra - musical sources of imagination.
The composition is conceived in a large two part form. The first part was composed in 1993/94 and commissioned by the Confederation of German Band and Folk Music Associations as a Grade 3/4 test piece and consequently selected for the competitions that took place during the second German Federal Festival of Music in Munster/Westfalia.
The music of the first part largely converts into sound patterns the vision which is described at the beginning of the legend. It was the atmosphere of something dreamlike or also something unattainable that became the inspiration for writhing the music of a tenderly somber world of dreams: Noise sounds of the beginning, bell like motifs and a vacillation sound stratum hovering in itself bestow upon this composition its mysteriously nocturnal character. Following it (through several repetitions of a mysterious chant in continuously increasing instrumentation and dynamics) an arc which apparently does not end is created that is able to symbolize the quest for the girl in terms of length of space and time in a dreamlike premonition.
Without having read the legend again in some two years, the second larger part of the musical poem was written in 1996 for the State Wind Orchestra of Baden Wurttemberg. It examines the more "real" aspects of the legend. At its beginning already the second part of this composition makes association, expressed by its ferocity, to the prince's "aberrations" in his quest for the girl. This, as we know, was shown in the first part in a visionary and idealistically transfigured way. This also applies to the importance of the flute which was alluded to only towards the end of the first part whereas here it is given ample room for development: A large cantilena full of enigmatic expression floats above an harmonic carpet which links the visions of nightly tranquillity of the first part. A constantly repeated rhythmical increase of march like character climaxes in picking up the "mysterious chant" of the first part. In that way it leads to formal unity of the complete work in an evident way. The atmosphere of the apotheosis of the final coda makes the relieving B flat major disappear in the visionary noise sounds of the beginning and dismisses the audience in a peaceful "legendary" atmosphere.
Holsinger was born December 26, 1945 in Kansas City, Missouri. He received his Bachelor of Music degree from Central Methodist College in Fayette, Missouri in 1967, and his Master of Music degree from Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg in 1974. He did further postgraduate study at Kansas University from 1979-81 where he also served as staff arranger for the University Bands and was Director of the Swing Choir. Holsinger was twice the recipient of the prestigious Ostwald Award for band composition, sponsored by the American Bandmasters Association. He currently serves as assistant to the Chief Musician at Shady Grove Church in Grand Prairie, Texas. Among his activities, he arranges and produces worship music albums, directs the Academy instrumental music program with his wife, Winona, and teaches theory in the church-affiliated Bible College. Holsinger serves annually as an instructor at several church music conferences and visits several universities yearly, serving as guest composer-conductor. He has held similar temporary posts in Poland and Guatemala. He was commissioned by Kappa Kappa Psi, national honorary band fraternity, to compose a work for their National Intercollegiate Band and conduct its premiere performance at their national convention in 1989.
Composed in 1993, A Song Of Moses, consists of four movements for SATB Voices, Winds and Percussion, based on portions f scripture found in Deuteronomy 32. This section of the old Testament deals with the final words of Moses, both prophetic and admonitory, given to the children of Israel shortly before his death. The composition had been originally sketched in 1992 for SATB voices and Timpani only. However, when approached by former Air Force Band Commander Alan Bonner, to write a work incorporating the superb talents of the Sing Sergeants with the Air Force Band, this earlier sketch took on added dimension and was greatly enlarged to include the vast panorama of musicians it now requires. This is Holsinger's second commission for the Air Force. in 1990, he wrote, To Tame the Perilous Skies for the then Tactical Air Command Band under the direction of Colonel Lowell Graham, now the conductor of the Washington D.C. Air Force Band.
Plato tells a story in which cave-dwellers are deprived the knowledge of the Light outside. In this story, Escape from Plato's Cave, the people of the Underworld are visited by a Man from the Light. He tells them of a wondrous world outside. Some Cave dwellers struggle against the would be listeners, using chains to forever imprison them in the shadows of the Cave. His message heard, a few take on the challenge of the Escape and eventually, through noble battle and dark journey, emerge from the shadowy underworld Into the Light.
At the very moment I had reached for the climax of the third movement, the transcendence from "D"ark to "G"od, I received word that Father Peter Rinaldi died. As a boy growing up, so often running to him at recess and serving mass with him every day of the summer, he taught me, by action, the Message of "the Man "... a message of Love. He literally gave me the shirt off his back one day, no show, no lesson, only Love. His entire Life was in dedication to something higher ... a Prayer to that which humbled him. My young adult novel, Only For Now, was dedicated to him, his name that of the main character. Subconsciously, I've quoted the 9 movement Wind Ensemble Suite, my first piece, inspired by that book. Now Father Rinaldi has gone into the light. He would not have me dedicate anything to him. His eyes were always looking upward beyond himself. But, to him, a man from the light ... I bow humbly and offer back that which was, and never really will be mine to give.
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me if you have any comments or suggestions.