Joel Puckett | Composer | vespersnarrative

A Conductor’s Narrative


It was between 1797 and 1799 that the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge labored over his grandest and most significant poem – The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The epic tale, set in seven distinct parts, depicts the horrific supernatural journey of a sea captain cursed for his deeds. His journey takes him to the ends of the earth and at the end of his travels, he still remains bound to tell his tale as a warning to others. Though the last six parts of the poem serve as the bulk of the text, the most famous and memorable section of the poem is its opening, which details the Mariner’s journey into the Antarctic, where he and his crew are trapped until the fateful appearance of an albatross – a symbol of good luck for sailors. With the appearance of the mystical bird, the ship makes haste back north, but the foolhardy Mariner shoots and kills the albatross with his crossbow. As punishment for his lack of remorse and penitence, the Mariner and his crew are doomed to their tragic fates.

It perched for vespers nine, composed by Joel Puckett, captures a single resonant image from the poem’s first section. A single stanza from the poem provides the source material for the work’s six sections, each of which corresponds to a fragment of the text:

In mist or cloud…
…on mast or shroud
It perched for vespers nine
Whiles all the night…
…through fog-smoke white
Glimmered the white moon-shine.

The air of mystery inherent to this section of the text becomes immediately apparent in the orchestration of Puckett’s tone poem, as a solitary drone on B-flat – representative, perhaps, of the beginning of the albatross’ song – expands into a haze of dissonant suspensions, only some of which resolve as the mass contracts back into a single pitch. The idea of programmatic writing is present, but instead of using representative leitmotifs, Puckett seems more to use bands of orchestration as representative colors on his canvas. This cloud of upper woodwinds exists as the sky, and more specifically, the eternal mist that accompanies the albatross, while the percussion that begins to sound underneath is the sloshing of the sea under the planks of the ship. 

The thunderclap of percussion that starts “…on mast or shroud…” introduces the character of the stalwart vessel, treading morosely across the haunted ocean. The brass, in a way, imitates the woodwind cloud through its staggered dissonance, cutting continuously through the mist with a steady rudder. A longing solo from the bass clarinet, centered lazily about F, introduces the somber song of the albatross, which continues in the eponymous “…It perched for vespers nine…” Through this section, the song continues through the family of clarinets as the ship continues on, its crew almost blissfully unaware of the bird’s presence as they navigate tufts of fog in flute and piano. 

A third cry of the albatross, more fervent than before, initiates “…Whiles all the night…” and agitates the sailors, noted with the brass moving together in awkward cross rhythms, while sea and sky merge into an inky darkness that threaten to consume the very boat itself. The piece reaches its moment of catharsis in “…through fog-smoke white…” as the ship pounds against the waves below and mist above. The sailors themselves become like their surroundings, moving together in great and terrifying waves, and still, the funereal dirge of the albatross cries out – echoing in canon against the soundscape – driving the ship through the murk as even the Mariner himself becomes enraptured in fear and wonder. At this moment of greatest density, Puckett weaves a spiderweb of counterpoint with over a dozen and a half distinct lines, foreshadowing the calamity imminent to both the albatross and the men aboard the haunted ship. 

Yet, just as the explosion seems imminent, the ship sails out of view as “Glimmered in the white moon-shine” returns the environment to its unspoiled initial state. Faint rocking of waves and the ever more distant hissing of the vessel slicing through the water dissipated into nothingness. Nevertheless, the clouds, expanding and contracting about the same drone as the work’s introduction, remain hovering over the gently lapping waves of the ocean below, only vaguely recalling the momentary disruption of the ship and the impending cataclysm that chases it relentlessly beyond.


It perched for vespers nine was commissioned by the American Bandmasters and the University of Florida. The premiere took place on March 13, 2008 and was presented by the Michigan State University Wind Ensemble with Matt Smith conducting.

-by Jake Wallace

listen to performance recordings

read program note

rental information

joel puckett
composer

biography music upcoming 
blog videos contact order music 

It perched for Vespers nine (2008)

shapeimage_2_link_0