Robert Hughes

Choral Voices, Large Expanded Orchestra, Electronics, and Video Projection

This complete edition of Silenus' Antiphonary includes the engraved scores for each of the four Suites, numerous holographic reproductions of the original multicolor graphic scores, and extensive program, production, and editorial notes.

Initiated in the early 1980s as a response to the potential afforded by new technologies, cross-disciplinary performance and performance art, Silenus’ Antiphonary was originally conceived as a rich assemblage of music with multi-image animations and video media. The project took shape in the 2000s with hand-drawn score pages augmented by inter-texts, color drawings, favorite images selected from illustrated manuscripts, sculpture and painting throughout the history of art, often resembling the Italian scrapbook or zibaldone assembled by medieval scholars and scribes.

Intended to be a constellation of many lodestars, the work’s philosophical and literary reach is mirrored in its wide gamut of performing forces. These include solo and a cappella voices; small, medium, and large choruses; chamber ensembles; full orchestras and oversize orchestras, with electronics.

Explore the full article on Silenus' Antiphonary.

Contents

Winter Suite

1. Timotheos Unfolds (Chaos into Time)
   7 Baritones with Chamber Orchestra
   Text: "Permit me voyage" by James Agee
2. Winter (Hibernus, On a Gentlewoman Walking in the Snow, Winter Tames Man Woman and Beast)
   Chorus with Full Orchestra
   Texts: “Snowbound” by John Greenleaf Whittier; “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” by James Agee; “Snowflakes” by Henry Longfellow; “Song by an Old Shepherd” by William Blake; “On a Gentlewoman walking in the Snowe” by William Strode; “Winter tames man, woman, and beast” by William Shakespeare
3. Interlude I (Water)
   Full Orchestra

Spring Suite

4. Vera (Spring)
   Chorus with Full Orchestra
   Texts: “At Chiusi, some happy morn” and “Pippa passes” by Robert Browning; “The Spring” by Thomas Carew; “Zefiro torna” by Francesco Petrarca; “The Leopard” by Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa; “And by the beach run, Tyro” from Canto II by Ezra Pound
5. Le Quattro Volte (Four Changes) / Newness strutting around as if it were significant
   Chamber Ensemble
   Includes reproduction from the holograph score
6. Pervigilium Veneris
   Chorus with Full Orchestra
   Text: “Cras amet qui nunquam” by anonymous, c. 4th century 
7. Interlude II (Leafy Treviso) / L'estate, "Contiga de Gioia de Santa Maria" de Alfonso El Sabio
   Full Orchestra

Summer Suite

8. Uutiqtut (The chase)
   Full Orchestra
9. Love Scene (The Kama Sutra, Ecstatic, Dance of Display, Return to Kama Sutra, Fanfare)
   Full Orchestra
   Includes reproduction from the holograph score
10. Fanfare
    Full Orchestra
11. Prelude to Gran’ Bacchanal
    Full Orchestra
12. Gran' Bacchanal (Dithyrambe, Satyr’s Prelude, Pentheus Returns, Gran’ Bacchanal)
    Full Orchestra

Autumn Suite

13. Interlude III (In Umbram)
    Full Orchestra
14. My Fading Sight...
    Chorus with Small Ensemble
    Text: "My fading sight..." by Hester Glory Storm
15. Ublarpaluk (Flowing, Alba)
    Full Orchestra