Page 14 - CJMay2026

Chamber Music by James Joyce: A Choral Commissioning Project

of the instrumental group, more possibilities present bring the piece to life even more.
themselves for textural contrast and variation of tim- With a living composer, it really is so exciting to col-
bre. laborate, to have the piece really sparkle. I asked every
composer at the outset if they would be happy enough
Scheibe: Did the composers choose the instruments? for me to come back if there was anything that might
Did you give them a palette of instruments, or did you require revision or tweaking for this specific ensemble;
add instruments to what they wrote? I wanted to be respectful. It might only have been a sin-
gle note or a phrase, or it might have been significant,
Earley: Each composer was offered use of the entire but each time we agreed to a change, I produced a new
palette of Solstice Ensemble’s lineup. Some compos- edition with new parts. These were dated according-
ers chose the entire group: alto saxophone, oboe, cor ly and printed on a different colored paper so that we
anglais, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, horn, harp, could identify them easily and make sure everyone was
guitar, and three strings (violin, cello, and contrabass). using the same edition in a rehearsal or recording ses-
It’s a nice combination to add the full instrumental en- sion.
semble to the choral timbre, providing an “untexted”
expression. Scheibe: You did some rewriting as well in some of the
Other composers picked one or more instruments choral writing, adding in baritone lines or some second
rather than the full ensemble. Dale Trumbore’s setting soprano lines where you needed a little more… voice,
of “Dear heart, why will you use me so?” (Poem XXIX) I think, in there. And you had no problem with any of
uses the bass clarinet. The text is dark and shadowy, your composers saying, oh, I don’t like that?
and to have the sound of that darkness represented
by the bass clarinet worked extremely well, evoking a Earley: I was very fortunate. Every composer was open
serpentine element in a poem about a “shadowy gar- to collaborating, even those who had never worked with
den.” us before. For one composer, this kind of collaboration
was a new experience, and I think—at first—they were
Scheibe: I noticed several scores had a new date, so it a little defensive until they realized that we were really
was apparent you had revised the scores. Were those working to have their incredible piece fit our ensemble
revisions done after you’d worked with the ensemble? like a glove. Then I think they were happy. As a com-
Were you revoicing to make things stronger for the en- poser myself, I understand why any composer would be
semble you had in front of you? Was there ever a need protective of their work. I appreciate all of it.
to contact a composer about their writing for the voices
or instruments? Scheibe: Do you think the Irish composers have a
different view of Joyce—reading the poems with an
Earley: My training as a baroque musician has taught understanding of their cultural heritage—and that
me to think about who the exact player (person) is sit- perhaps those you’ve commissioned from, for example,
ting at the music desk. For example, questions such Latvia or Australia or the United States do not? Is there
as, who was the instrumentalist who played for Han- a different writing?
del or who played for Bach? These composers—being
acclaimed instrumentalists in their own right, compos- Earley: As to whether non-Irish and Irish composers
er-musicians—thought about the musician’s capabili- treated the texts differently from each other, I would
ties for whom they were composing at the time. It’s the say they all treated the texts with consideration, par-
same thing here. For this project, I continually asked ticularly when thinking of questions of inflection or
myself, who will play this line? When the capability syllabic stress or in musically painting the direction of
of the player and the sound that they make is known a poetic line.
to you, you can introduce change and flourishes that Joyce had deep Irish roots, but as I mentioned ear-

12 CHORAL JOURNAL May 2026 Volume 66 Number 8