History of the World.
2024-25. 29′
Three Harmonic Sketches for Orchestra
I. The Birth of David (9')
II. First Distant Messenger (8')
III. The Garden of Eden (12')
Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 French horns, 2 trumpets in C, to trombones, 1 tuba, 2 percussion, harp, piano / celeste, and strings.
In History of the World, I set out to compose three inter-related works that deal with the shared histories of our past and the possibilities of our undiscovered future. To root these explorations, I look to Michelangelo and Galileo, whose lives spanned a unique period of humanity where older mythologies were being reimagined, and scientific developments offered pathways toward what I'm sure these thinkers hoped would be a shared future.
My work's outer movements deal with Michelangelo's reckonings of the Old Testament. His monumental depiction of David and his otherworldly rendering of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden imagine the mythological people as both unobtainable states and somehow entirely human. Galileo's perceptions and divine musings in Starry Messenger serve as the work's contemplative inner movement.
Today, new dangers in our social fabric have emerged as some are set on cultural erasure, afraid of both the liberations of scientific advancement and of mythological reinvention. Perhaps now more than ever this is a time to confirm a complicated, fraught, and ever-striving history of the world.
A comparable sense of drama and surprise animated John Aylward’s History of the World, also heard in its world premiere. Drawing on the legacies of Michelangelo and Galileo, the piece dramatizes the tension between artistic vision and scientific inquiry. Moving between shadow and radiance, it evokes enduring conflicts between ancient mystery and modern discovery.
This idea unfolds across two movements inspired by biblical figures: David and Adam and Eve. The harmonies hover in prismatic suspension. The effect is elemental —gestures collide and overlap, often resisting clear resolution.
In the second movement, single tones accumulate into luminous harmonies. Strings ripple gently, and brass coalesce into delicate, shimmering sonorities. Rose led a finely detailed performance that illuminated the work’s shifting textures.
— Aaron Keebaugh