Diadem

instrumentation: voice (C#3 – B4) + toy glockenspiel, C trumpet, tenor trombone, bass clarinet
duration: 4 minutes
written in: 2019–21 
written for: loadbang
text: R.A. Briggs

Diadem is a song about gay desire in Medieval Europe. The text tells of the protagonist’s inner conflict as he discovers his longing for another man and has to reevaluate what he has been taught by Church. The piece is more or less in the form of a 15th-century virelai (I like to think of it as a “queerelai”), and the musical style is suggestive of Guillaume Dufay and the composers of the Ars Subtilior. Diadem was commissioned by loadbang.

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download score (pdf)

download poem (pdf)