Dead, The

Program Notes:

[We included the whole composer note in our concert program.]

Conductor Notes:

This is a very challenging work for marimba and spoken word chorus in three parts. The text is from James Joyce’s “The Dubliners”. The title comes from the name of the last story in the book. There are some performances by mixed choir on YouTube.

Composer / Arranger Notes:

From composer Kevin Joest: “My favorite sentence in all of literature is the basis for this piece. It is the last line in the last story of James Joyce’s “Dubliners” and reads as follows: “His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling, faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and all the dead.” The story follows a man named Gabriel and his wife Gretta. They are at dinner on Christmas Eve with Gabriel’s aunt, then head home. Gabriel finds Gretta staring out the window at the snow, and she tells him the story of a boy she loved in childhood who died of tuberculosis. Gabriel comes to the realization that Gretta has always loved this other boy, Michael, and only “settled” for him. It is then that his soul swoons into the lines I love so much. The marimba plays a minimalistic line throughout the majority of the piece, as more of a backup to the voices that provide a dark and ominous tone for the story. The piece also uses some Pendereskian effects, suggesting a chorus of souls in an almost Greek underworld sense. It is very minimalistic, starkly contrasting the complexity of the thematic material in the story.”