The Devil's Game

Description

Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass, Piano — The text is a palindrome (in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni), a rather mysterious one called The Devil’s Verse. Its origin is vague (probably Roman, but possibly Medieval) and it does not surrender its meaning easily; many scholars have fussed over it. It is a riddle as well as a palindrome, in other words a puzzle within a puzzle. My preferred translation, without going into the niceties of Latin grammar, is “We enter the circle at night and are consumed by fire.”This music is also a palindrome, the outer parts of which are homophonic, while the turning around point in the center (where the basses enter for the first time) is a brief double canon. To celebrate 25 years of excellence and promotion of new concert works, the New York Virtuoso Singers commissioned 25 contemporary composers for 25 new choral works, all of which now appear on their recording, 25 X 25: Twenty-Five Premieres for Twenty-Five Years. Among the 25 is Richard Wernick's The Devil's Game. Here, Wernick uses The Devil's Verse, a Latin palindrome that still puzzles us today as to its meaning, and appropriately embraces repetitive use of the verse in a musical palindrome of his own.