WINGATE: IMAGINARY OVERTURE TO MEDEA
for orchestra of low instruments

Date:
1992

Instrumentation:
1 Contrabass Clarinet in B-flat, 1 Bassoon, 1 Contrabassoon, 4 Horns in F, 1 Bass Trumpet in B-flat, 1 Bass Trombone, 1 Contrabass Trombone, 1 Tuba, Timpani. 3 Percussion (Bass Drum, Cymbals, Tam-Tam), Harp, Cellos (8), and Contrabasses (6). [Possible substitutions: Tenor Trombone for Bass Trumpet, and 2nd Bass Trombone for Contrabass Trombone.]

Duration:
3'40"

Notes:
The Imaginary Overture to Medea for orchestra of low instruments is the prelude to an uncomposed opera, originally conceived as a one-woman show or extended dramatic monologue concertante for Wagnerian soprano, featuring a setting of an experimental poetic texts by the composer’s friend Susan Decker after works by Apollonius of Rhodes and Euripides. What remains of this abandoned project is the completed overture, scored for a dark-timbered orchestral ensemble notably lacking many of the customary high-pitched orchestral instruments. The overture takes the form of a dirge-like canon, unhurriedly carried at first by the contrabassi, then the celli, and eventually passed freely amongst the sundry members of the ensemble in 24-note groups. Relentless in its sombre procession, the canon’s eventual climax (perhaps foreshadowing Medea’s climactic escape in her dragon-driven chariot with the murdered children) abruptly gives way to a lonely low strum on the harp, and ends on the same quiet low E in the basses where it began. The work’s dour simplicities betray the influence of the then-fashionable mystical minimalists, especially the monodic Polish liturgical chant opening of Henryk Górecki’s gravely processional Miserere (1981).