SYMPHONY: “TRANSMUTATION”

  • for full orchestra

    • Version 1 (triple winds): 3(2=afl.3=picc).3(3=corA).3(3=bcl).2.cbsn--4.3.3.1--timp.perc(3)--pno--hrp--strings

    • Version 2 (double winds): 2(2=picc.afl).2(2=corA).2(2=bcl).2(2=cbsn)--4.3.3.1--timp.perc(3)--pno--hrp--strings

      • Percussion: marimba/vib/4tom-t/water gong/2high.wdbl/3 pairs sandpaper blocks/tamb/3 pairs rute/vibraslap/glsp/BD/3susp.cym/bongos/tgl/piccoclo.wdbl/flexible mallet on a rimless drumhead (conga)/large.gong (C#2 or 3)/xyl/crot/t-bells/tam-t/tpl.bl/SD/cyms/slapstick

  • Completed: 2025

  • 25 minutes

PROGRAM NOTE

The Great Work of the medieval protoscience of Alchemy—its so-called magnum opus—aimed to turn one thing into another, most famously lead into gold. Some practitioners believed this grand transformation unfolded in four color-coded stages: first black (nigredo), then white (albedo), yellow (citrinitas), and finally red (rubedo). Picture it as a short ladder climbing from darkness to light. At the top of that ladder supposedly waited the Philosopher’s Stone, “a stone that is not a stone,” able to transform lead into gold, heal plague sores, and allow communion with beasts (and even the local seraphim). True? Probably not. But the thrill of turning trash into treasure is hard to resist—ask any composer staring at their scribbles on staff paper.

Cover image of the full score

I’m drawn to dusty alchemical texts, not for ancient recipes of secret elixirs, but to eavesdrop on an older imagination that treated chemistry, poetry, and prayer as one boiling cauldron. Symphony: “Transmutation” (three movements performed without pause, lasting nearly half an hour) rides the same color stages the alchemical texts allude to, but as less of a chemistry lesson and more as a field guide to one's inner topography.

I. Nigredo (Blackening)
Alchemists began by calcining everything into a sooty lump: the breakdown before breakthrough. The piece opens in that charcoal fog. Solo voices grasping for half-remembered melodies curl upward like smoke seeking a crack in the ceiling.

II. Albedo (Whitening)
Next came the wash: impurities were sluiced away, the mixture turned ghost-white while spark and clarity seep in. Here the music intensifies, the pulse clarifies, and sudden shards of sharp harmony cut through like gleaming light on wet metal.

III. Citrinitas to Rubedo (Yellowing to Reddening)
When the brew flashes crimson, the alchemical manuals promise success has been found: gold in the crucible, spirit and matter fused. The piece answers with music that ceases its fight with gravity and begins glowing from the inside out.

Taken together, the three movements offer a journey from breakdown to breakthrough. No bags of gold leave the hall, but if you catch even a spark of that old alchemical optimism—the belief that raw, stubborn stuff (be it lead or heartbreak) can still blaze into something vivid and glorious—then the experiment has paid off. And unlike our medieval colleagues, we don’t have to worry about setting the monastery on fire. - SC