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Though the works on this album are varied in genre, from vocal to string quartet, they share a common theme, explicit in the song cycle Friendly Fire and implicit in the other works; that theme embodies grief, personal or for the plight of people blighted by war; hope in the backing of action by faith.
Rodney Lister is a composer based in New England. His biography is impressive and features commissions from the US Library of Congress and many leading ensembles, and a wealth of compositions, articles and other writings. He is currently teaching at Boston University and the New England Conservatory as well as tutoring duties at Harvard; he also works with the Greenwood Music Camp in Massachusetts.
This album offers a view of a composer whose output is both lyrical and abstract, with a poetic command of foreground and background, consonance and dissonance. Often, the core of the work is a borrowed or found fragment, in particular American hymn tunes. The melodies become locations of stability but subject to subtle and sometimes unsettling modifications.
NOTE: One of the poems included in Friendly Fire (‘For the Union Dead’ by Robert Lowell) contains a racial epithet considered unacceptable in day to day speech and writing today. It is retained because of its historical and social context in a poem which is strongly anti-racist and is a cry against the injustice meted out to African-American troops fighting for the Union in the American Civil War. The poem itself is regarded as a classic of modern literature, appreciated by commentators of all ethnicities.
- Faith-Based Initiative
- Complicated Grief – I. Fantasia
- Complicated Grief – II. Variance
- Complicated Grief – III. Quodlibet
- Friendly Fire – I. Ode to the Confederate Dead
- Friendly Fire – II. The Fury of Aerial Bombardment
- Friendly Fire – III. Women, Children, Babies, Cows, Cats
- Friendly Fire – IV. Losses
- Friendly Fire – V. The March into Virginia
- Friendly Fire – VI. The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
- Friendly Fire – VII. Ashbah (The Ghosts of American Soldiers)
- Friendly Fire – VIII. A Box Comes Home
- Friendly Fire – IX. The Certainty
- Friendly Fire – X. For the Union Dead
Rodney Lister:
- 01 Faith-Based Initiative
- 02 Complicated Grief – I. Fantasia
- 03 Complicated Grief – II. Variance
- 04 Complicated Grief – III. Quodlibet
- 05 Friendly Fire – I. Ode to the Confederate Dead
- 06 Friendly Fire – II. The Fury of Aerial Bombardment
- 07 Friendly Fire – III. Women, Children, Babies, Cows, Cats
- 08 Friendly Fire – IV. Losses
- 09 Friendly Fire – V. The March into Virginia
- 10 Friendly Fire – VI. The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
- 11 Friendly Fire – VII. Ashbah (The Ghosts of American Soldiers)
- 12 Friendly Fire – VIII. A Box Comes Home
- 13 Friendly Fire – IX. The Certainty
- 14 Friendly Fire – X. For the Union Dead
