GOD FORBID PERUSALSCORE
for saxophone quartet — by Griffin Candey for the UMMA's 2022 "You Are Here" exhibit paired with Louise Nevelson's Black Excursion No. 13 (1964)
PERUSALSCORE
God Forbid
for saxophone quartet
PERUSALSCORE
Griffin Candey
Program Note
God Forbid came to be as part of the YOU ARE HERE project, curated by the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) and by Matt Albert, Chair of the Chamber Music department at Michigan. For this project, we were asked to write a new work to partner with an extant work of art in the UMMA’s core collections—and I had the great luck to be assigned a work by the late great Louise Nevelson, specifically her Black Excursion No. 13.
Almost all anecdotes around Louise Nevelson position her as “the most forceful,” a juggernaut of an artist who aimed for the top and didn't let up until she arrived, challenging the male-dominated field in which she had to fight for every inch of space she gained. God Forbid reflects both the orderliness of Black Excursion No. 13 and the unrelenting artist behind the pristineness. The title references a Nevelson quote about her former in-laws, art “connoisseurs” who disliked Nevelson's artistic pursuits, largely for misogynistic presumptions of who could be an artist, a “genius.” To this, Nevelson said: "Within that circle you could know Beethoven, but God forbid if you were Beethoven.”
Instrumentation
saxophone quartet
Duration: 4'
First printing, August 2024
Copyright ©2022 Griffin Candey. All Rights Reserved. Program Note Copyright ©2022 Griffin Candey. All Rights Reserved Published by Just a Theory Press | www.justatheorypress.com
soprano, alto, and tenor continue small, frantic three-note bisbigliando, occasionally accenting the lowest note (concert C,) non-coord. with one another, creating a sort of mumbling, "popcorn" a ect; freely add small metric pushes and pulls, dynamic hairpins—whatever serves the texture
(bisbigliando continues for 9-10 seconds before baritone enters)
not metrically precise, but keep energy moving forward
thundering, unrelenting
(push into a growl, screamingly loud, and cut o sharply)
Soprano
bisbig. continues, but without sporadic accents — m oving more into strict time (back to strict time at m. 26) land strongly together
following and responding to baritone, like an echo
PERUSALSCORE
