Curtains for Brass Band and Narrator by Matthew Nunes - Composer published on 2020-10-01T18:32:36Z Purchase this piece: https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/curtains-for-brass-band-and-narrator-digital-sheet-music/22535256 Curtains for Brass Band and Narrator (2020) by Matthew Nunes Text by Jessica Mitford extracted from her 1963 essay "Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain" Composer's Notes: Jessica Mitford’s incisive 1963 essay "Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain" is the inspiration for this piece. Mitford dissects the embalming industry while baring the ironies and inhumanities of its processes. First included in her book "The American Way of Death", we follow “Mr. Jones” from death to burial and experience all the tools, techniques, and abuses in-between. It was required reading for me as a high school junior and a text that grows more haunting with each added birthday candle. The piece follows “Mr. Jones” on his journey with narrated extracts from Mitford’s essay. The opening chords are constructed from the pitches D-flat, E-flat, A-flat, and another D-flat, following Igor Stravinsky’s final chord in "The Rite of Spring" (D-E-A-D). From here the material alternates between chromatically descending, as the corpse nears its final resting place, and ascending, while the embalmers fight to champion death. - Matthew Nunes Niceville, July 2020 Genre Classical
