Lucy I’m Home and Other Meshugas, for brass quintet, is about injecting levity into serious music. As such, each of its three movements incorporates a humorous element. The opening movement, “Antiphon,” divides the quintet into two groups, whose stately back-and-forth, reminiscent of the antiphonal music of the Renaissance/Baroque composer Giovanni Gabrieli, devolves into a petty rivalry to see who can play softer. (The trumpets and trombone win out, ultimately, thanks to their practice mutes.)
The title of the second movement, “In Reinberger,” refers to the location underneath the main stage at Severance Hall (home of The Cleveland Orchestra) where I and other members of the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus were often sequestered during the first half of a concert, before it was time to take the stage. Usually, the members of the chorus had to constantly shush each other, as conversations flared up here and there, the sound threatening to bleed over into the main hall. “In Reinberger” thus has the members of the quintet shushing each other whenever the music gets too loud.
The final movement, “Lucy, I’m Home,” recalls again certain Renaissance or Baroque music, as the trumpets intone a solemn, ethereal cantus firmus over Bach-like counterpoint from the horn, trombone, and tuba. That the cantus firmus melody happens to be the theme song from the TV show I Love Lucy may not be obvious at first; it’s there as a kind of wink to the astute listener. The piece closes with a chorale harmonization of the I Love Lucy theme.
Lucy, I’m Home and Other Meshugas was written in 2011 for the Meridian Arts Ensemble, who performed it in a workshop at Cleveland State University in Cleveland, Ohio.
Recording: the Meridian Arts Ensemble (Cleveland, Ohio, 2011)
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