Terror Management Theory is a piece for undergraduate-level symphony orchestra. Though written to be accessible to a novice player, there is little pitched material. As this is the case, whenever one hears a melodic line, this material comes from a Master melodic line, which is only exposed by the final climax.
Since the piece is centered around the psychological complications posed by awareness of mortality, the composition’s timbres had been predetermined to reflect tremors, heartbeats, and large explosions of nervous energy: energy that was expressed in whichever way was most satisfying for each instrument.
In my talks about my own death anxiety with my therapist, we discussed how thankful we were that the human body can only sustain anxiety for so long before it becomes too tired to submit itself to self-torment. It is my hope that by the end of this piece, the effect is similar: one of earned weariness, and yet, peace.
