The Mask of Night
Rebekah Driscoll
About this work:
The Mask of Night is a collection of excerpts from plays by William Shakespeare, focusing on night and the effect it can have on human beings. We see mischievious fairies cavorting as the sun goes down in "A Midsummer Night’s Dream", and the ghost of Hamlet’s father “doomed…to walk the night.” Lorenzo and Jessica (from "The Merchant of Venice") look up at the stars and imagine that they create music inaudible to mortals; the night has made them feel connected to a world larger than the one they live in and understand. Juliet claims that the darkness has allowed her to express her feelings for Romeo much more candidly than she could have during the day. However in "Othello, the Moor of Venice", darkness has a sinister quality to it, and some characters believe it incites otherwise rational people to violence. This piece aims to illustrate these diverse effects of the night in six contrasting movements.
I. A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 5, Sc. 1
II. The Merchant of Venice, Act 5, Sc. 1
III. Othello, Act 5, Sc. 2
IV. Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Sc. 2
V. Hamlet, Act 1, Sc. 5
VI. The Tempest, Act 4, Sc. 1
Year composed: 2004
Duration: 00:20:00
Ensemble type: Voice, Solo or With Chamber or Jazz Ensemble:Two or more Solo Voices with Large Chamber/Jazz Ensemble (10 +)
Instrumentation: 2 Flute, 2 Clarinet, 2 Horn in F, 2 Violin, 1 Viola, 1 Cello, 1 Double bass, 1 Soprano, 1 Tenor, 1 Baritone
Instrumentation notes: The 2007 version of this piece is for a chamber orchestra (ie multiple strings per part); the samples here are from an early version of the piece for a smaller ensemble.