FRANK MORANA
AmerOrganist 35/1

MA. In this work, the composer has attempted to give

musical vent to some of the ways in which the phenomenon of

fire has held sway in the human mind over the centuries, and

the name Hyperion is that of the mythological fire-hero. The

first movement, "Hermes, The Messenger of Fire," pits

chamade, reed chorus, and pedal soli in a three-way

conversation in the manner of recitative, and concludes

with a short but fearsome tutti. The second movement, "The

Fires of Silence" features a disjunctly lyrical Krummhorn

solo in a brooding Molto Adagio. This movement is an

ABACB-form in which "B" consists of fluttering tremolandi on

the Voix humaine combined with Flutes 8 and 16', and "C"

consists of solo pedal work against a rich jeux de fonds.

The third movement, "Phlogiston of the soul," is the true

slow movement, and the longest of the four. (Phlogiston was

an imaginary element once believed to have caused combustion

and to have been emitted by anything burning.) Though very

freely constructed, some of the recurring features include

polymetric arpeggiandi on the 4' Flute, which are

"interrupted" by various soloistic passages; a kind of

fragmented ostinato for full Pedal, with sputtering manual

interjections on the Mixtures and 2' alone; suavely rocking

passages in 12/16-time for Oboe with Tremolo, in full

harmony, and with pedal solo on the 4' Clairon; and a murky

cantilena, accompanied, in the very lowest register and

without contrasing timbre, by passages of doubled thirds.

The finale, "Agni, Fire of Exaltation," is not conceived as

a grand apotheosis, but rather, is the most concise of the

four movements. The Chamade appears in a soloistic capacity

against a repeated-chord idea that seems almost to fulfill

the function of a ritornello. A deft cadenza leads into a

secondary passage, and the two ideas alternate briefly in

the final pages.