Writings About Music

Symphonic Transfiguration

Germany and Austria To America By Way of India

Part of being a composer is coming face to face with the symphonies of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler, however intimidating that reckoning may seem. It has occurred to me once or twice that my compositions based upon Indian ragas exist on a symphonic scale even if their originating model is closer to chamber music. My instinctual sense is that my pathway here represents a natural transfiguration of symphonic form.

Specifically based on ragas, and all roughly an hour long, except for one that is three hours long, and another being three and a half hours long, are Lunar Mansions, Luminous Realms, Nagamani, Sagarmatha, Monsoon Clouds, Indian Ocean, Snow Leopard Meadow, Astral Palace, Jaunpuri, Bhoop, Kaunsi Kanada, Kirvani, Bairagi, Madhmad Sarang, Mian Ki Malhar, Dhani, Bhimpalasi, Rageshri, Natabhairavi, Yaman, Nat Narayan, Shankara, Vachaspati, Gangadhara, Puriya Dhanashri, Todi, Darbari Kanada, and many more roughly thirty to forty minutes long. All these are featured here.

 

 

 

 

European classical, American jazz, Indian classical, and myriad forms of rock, pop and traditional music exist simultaneously inside and around myself awaiting filtering through prisms of temperament guided by deployment.

- Michael Robinson, April 2017, Los Angeles

 

© 2017 Michael Robinson All rights reserved

 

Michael Robinson is a Los Angeles-based composer and writer (musicologist).