My interest in grimoires and spell books began during the pandemic, when I found myself wishing I could call on some forgotten magic. That wish became the starting point for Book of Spells, a sixteen-minute brass quintet in six movements.

The piece draws on Francis Barrett’s The Magus, the anonymous Black Pullet and The Lesser Key of Solomon, and the Icelandic Galdrabók. The rhythms and sounds of their incantations shape the music. The movement titles reflect different magical acts and aims: I. Invocation—, II. Prosperity, III. Protection, IV. Healing, V. Hex, and VI. Counterspell (after Caresana).

In “Hex,” the players use plunger mutes to imitate an Icelandic curse through their instruments, creating a kind of instrumental glossolalia, or speaking in tongues.

I wrote the piece during and after my father’s final struggle with progressive supranuclear palsy, a degenerative neurological disease. In the final three movements—“Healing,” “Hex,” and “Counterspell”—the rituals became personal attempts to call that magic into my own life.

The final movement incorporates “Dormi o ninno,” a lullaby from the seventeenth-century composer Cristofaro Caresana’s Christmas cantata La Veglia. Here, it becomes a lullaby for my father. The work is dedicated to his memory.

Book of Spells was written for the Atlantic Brass Quintet in 2023. Their artistry and collaboration helped the piece become something I could not have achieved alone.

—SC