Three Nocturnes - Dan Forrest (b. 1978)

Dan Forrest is a contemporary composer born in 1978. Dan Forrest attended Bob Jones University, where he earned degrees in piano performance and composition. He later completed his Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) in composition while in attendance at the University of Kansas. In addition to his work in composition, he also serves as an editor at Beckenhorst Press, a leading publisher of sacred music, alongside composers such as Craig Courtney. With teachers such as Alice Parker and James Barnes, both contemporary composers, Dan Forrest has moved into the spotlight as one of the leading composers of the 21^st century with compositions such as Requiem for the Living, Goodnight Dear Heart, and the subject of this paper, Three Nocturnes.

            Three Nocturnes is a set of pieces by Dan Forrest consisting entirely of poetry pertaining to the stars. It is meant to evoke a sense of awe and wonder, but also power and stalwart beauty in the stars and the space that they occupy. The pieces comprise of texts from three different poets: Sara Teasdale’s Stars, Emily Dickinson’s Lightly Stepped a Yellow Star, and Walt Whitman’s …Thou motive of the stars, the last of which is a collected selection from Walt Whitman’s Passage to India. This three-movement set uses extensive SATB writing and is generally going to be performed with a more advanced choir. It is also written for a number of percussion instruments, including but not limited to crotales with a bow, glockenspiel, vibraphone, xylophone, bell tree, temple blocks, timpani, piano, and celesta. The extensive nature of the choir voicing, coupled with the large logistical challenge of the percussionists, can make this work inaccessible for inexperienced choirs, but ultimately, the end result can be quite effective at creating a piece that captivates audiences for the entire twenty-minute duration.

   The three movements generally follow the same theme. They will each have contrasting sections that use the text to drive the music. The opening movement creates a sense of wonder as the winds rush through the hills, as if one were looking up at the night sky. The middle section of the piece becomes a stoic representation of the vastness of space and the power the stars have, while the third section returns to the opening themes, all of which take us on a journey through imagining a scene interrupted by the stars. The second movement is more playful, and paints an image of the stars themselves stepping down from their “lofty place” and setting themselves in the sky. The entire second movement, with the exception of a middle section remains a bouncing, lively representation of the stars in space. The final movement is the most declaratory, opening with large, swelling harmonies that soar from the beginning. This richness declares the majesty of the stars, before ending with a return to the hillside landscape once more.