Can chamber music be a secret? Today from the archives, Prue presents Inner Voices: an anachronous chamber work in three movements, recorded at the dawn of these dark times. Another substack exclusive.
Inner Voices
In 2020, I wrote a piece of chamber music called Inner Voices. Despite having a “classical background,” I had never written any music that could really be called classical; I had always wanted to, and while we were locked down in our secluded barn in Upstate New York, it seemed like a good place to start.
Inner Voices (Mvt. I)
People often ask what a piece of artwork means or what inspired you to create it. When thinking about Inner Voices, I don’t have any answers for this other than, at times, writing it felt like I could connect with something both beyond myself and completely of myself. It felt like casting a wish for the future by weaving together musical threads from my past, including pieces by composers such as Grieg, Vivaldi, Elgar, and Bartok that I had grown up playing but hadn't connected with in years.
Inner Voices (Mvt. II)
I was lucky enough to have the piece recorded by OpenSound Orchestra, which meant scoring it in a way that could be shared without any extra instruction from me. Hearing them play it into life over a Zoom call was magic. Music notation always feels a bit like a magic spell; an entire universe can be summoned up from dots and lines on a page, transmuted into changes in air pressure, with the power to completely alter the energy of a room or the cells in a body.
Inner Voices (Mvt. III)
When I listen to the recording, it transports me. I don’t know where exactly. Back to the headspace I was in when I wrote it, back to New York. But also someplace less tangible, somewhere beyond language and edges, somewhere that I’ve been before, and somewhere that I know I’ll end up again in the future. An eternal place that sits outside of other places. It’s really personal, so much so that even after all the time I put into it and how satisfied I was with both the creative process and the result, I was happy to keep it for myself — three tracks hidden in semi-secret on an inactive SoundCloud — as a kind of catalogue of proof.
Beautiful. I particularly adore Movement II. Stunning work.
Beautiful music.