Wand’ring Fire (2021)

Duration: 10:00 minutes

Instrumentation: harp and percussion (temple bowl, bell tree, bamboo chims, vibraphone, gong, G-alto kalimba)

Premiere: July 20, 2022 by Anna Kate Mackle, harp and John Shaw, percussion at Dana Auditorium, Greensboro, NC

Notes:

Wand’ring Fire is a musical meditation on the ignis fatuus or will-o’-the-wisp. These strange lights that appear in the night can be explained scientifically, which is a fascinating topic on its own, but I was particularly fascinated by the various folkloric explanations. In many stories and folktales, these lights are malevolent spirits that draw people toward them, leading their victims astray and often to death. With this sort of scenario in mind, my piece is a kind of free fantasy depicting such a mysterious light, first appearing in the distance, then drawing the listener closer, and finally a grotesque dance as the spirit celebrates its latest conquest.

The piece is in several continuous sections with their own titles: The Flitting Lantern, Incantation, and Foolish/Foulish Dance. The first section is dominated by a singing bowl, which represents the light, and the subtitle quotes from the poetry of John Keats, who described the will-o’-the-wisp as a “flitting lantern” in his long poem Endymion. The following Incantation is the moment when the spirit enchants its victim; it is a spell, but also a song, which begins on the kalimba, or thumb piano. The section of fast music comes from a more obscure text by the 16th-century cleric William Fulke, directly translating the Latin ignuus fatuus as “foolish fire”, later spelled as “foulish fire”. (While this is just an antiquated spelling, I was captivated by the shifting connotations of “foolish” and “foulish,” which seemed perfect for the grotesque revelries of this malevolent spirit.) Finally, the overall title of the piece, Wand’ring Fire, comes from a line in John Milton’s Paradise Lost in which the will-o’-the-wisp is evocatively described.