Inferno an electroacoustic ballet   completed July 1997 duration: approx. 40 minutes   This work won third prize in the Music for Dance Competition of the 1997 Festival des Arts de Saint-Sauveur where the music was performed in August of that year.   Listen to a sample in RealAudio.       Download the drivers (above), then click on your connection type (below).   14.4k  28.8k  56k+     The work is in 5 sections, based on the first 5 layers of Hell in Dante's Inferno.  In each layer a different "sin" in punished.  Each section consists of a brief setting for soprano from Dante's original text, forming a vocal "prelude" (which appears on the tape but may alternately be performed live by soprano and harpsichord), followed by an electroacoustic "development" in which the vocal part is transformed through various techniques accompanied by MIDI instruments and also includes environmental sounds appropriate to the setting.  The vocal part on the tape is performed by Toronto-based soprano Alexa Wing.  The following is a summary of each of the 5 sections with text translations of the vocal part from Allen Mandelbaum (Bantam, 1982):     I - The Indecisive   The text is from the sign above the entrance to Hell.  The indecisive are tormented by insects and are forced unendingly to chase a banner.   Through me the way into the suffering city, through me the way to the eternal pain, through me the way that runs among the lost. Justice urged on my highest artificer; my maker was divine authority, the highest wisdom and the primal love. Before me nothing but eternal things were made, and I endure eternally. Abandon every hope, who enter here.   II - Limbo   Limbo is where the virtuous non-Christians dwell.  They are not punished, but must exist forever without hope of being close to God.   Here, for as much as hearing could discover, there was no outcry louder than the sighs that caused the everlasting air to tremble. The sighs arose from sorrow without torments, out of the crowds - the many multitudes - of infants and of women and of men.   III - The Lustful   The lustful are forever buffeted by a violent wind storm.   Now notes of desperation have begun to overtake my hearing; now I come where mighty lamentation beats against me. I reached a place where every light is muted, which bellows like the sea beneath a tempest, when it is battered by opposing winds.   IV - The Gluttonous   The gluttonous lie supine and are flailed by cold and filthy precipitation.   I see new sufferings, new sufferers surrounding me on every side, wherever I move or turn about or set my eyes. I am in the third circle, filled with cold, unending, heavy, and accursed rain; its measure and its kind are never changed.   V - The Wrathful   The wrathful constantly tear at and devour each other while immersed in the swamp-like river Styx.   Justice of God! Who has amassed as many strange tortures and travails as I have seen? Why do we let our guilt consume us so? How many up above now count themselves great kings, who'll wallow here like pigs in slime, leaving behind foul memories of their crimes!   (Optional reprise of Sign Above the Gate of Hell)   To request a score, tape, or more information send me an e-mail.     If you do not see a frame at the left, click here.