Regicide

Below is my program note from my recital:

I wrote Regicide in the spring of 2017. Even after composing the piece in its entirety and giving it the title (which means “the murder of a king”), I still did not really know what the piece meant. I spent hours poring over the score, racking my brain, and came up with nothing. It was not until several months of rehearsals leading up to the December 2017 premiere that the significance of the piece finally dawned on me.

I am the king. The regicide that occurs in this piece is my own murder, my own death. It is almost a third-person view of myself as I suffer a metaphorical death. The first section, introduced by a long, dramatic violin melody, is my own grief at witnessing myself being brought down so low. “How noble a hero,” I think to myself. “How terrible and tragic a death.” 

After the first grand pause, the cello surprises the listener with a frantic ostinato that continues throughout the section. This is the realization of the true significance of my death. I have suffered my “tragic” martyrdom, and now it occurs to me that all is not how it should be. Maybe I was not so “noble” as I thought myself to be. As intensity builds, so does the epiphany of the relative insignificance of my downfall.

When this section concludes, there is more sadness, but this time it is illuminated by a ray of hope. Hope which comes with a new knowledge that, because I am not as important as I once thought myself to be, I can undergo this death and resurrection filled with assurance that there is a grander scheme than the arc of my own experience. There is a greater plan at work than my own individual sufferings. And for that reason, I can endure.

Regicide is one of my most vulnerable works to date. Although I wasn’t aware of its meaning or significance at the time I was writing it, it is clear now that this piece was an expression of innermost grief developing into a lofty yet uncertain hope—a once proud man realizing that he is nothing, but eventually finding worth in things outside himself.

The return of the main theme in the third and final part is the return of hope, but it is tainted by previous experiences and apprehensive about the prospect of moving forward in any real way. On many levels, I would have rather stayed in the terror and despair of the middle section, because at least it was real. At least I was honest with myself about who I was, and my relative well-being wasn’t dependent on anything over which I had no control. But there is a hope that is entirely impossible to reject when it is realized, and I found myself chasing after it even when I wasn’t sure that having hope in something wouldn’t turn out the same way it did last time.

from Donny Snyder: When I first saw Regicide, I panicked. There were a lot of notes on those pages. I first saw the sheet music about two weeks into my freshman year and immediately dreaded agreeing to play it. Fast forward a few months to when the quartet actually started practicing the piece and I quickly realized that it wasn’t so bad. It was somehow manageable while simultaneously sounding like our strings could erupt into flames at any given second. The rehearsals we had were actually entertaining because they were therapeutic. My cello seemed like a punching bag during the quick 32nd note runs and the ponticello certainly didn’t help change its use.

When the concert finally came around, I was nervously excited. The intro went well and then we got to the fast part. Bows flying, left hand gliding up and down the neck, it was organized chaos. Our fingers flew up and down the neck, following the muscle memory we had built and our right hands delivered the punches to the story Smith had written. While it was at first daunting, I do not for one second regret agreeing to pay his terrifying piece!

from Chloe Smith: I’ve had the pleasure of performing the first violin part of Regicide twice, and you can’t beat the feeling after a performance. The piece feels so personally rewarding to me because of the teamwork and dedication it takes to prepare with the string quartet.

The technical challenges the piece present are no joke (seriously, at some point you just stop counting the ledger lines and pray). Regicide also demands the quartet listen to each other and really rely on each other rhythmically. When we first started learning the piece, I expected as much for the tumultuous middle section. But the more we played and the more I came to understand the piece, I realized how heavy the slower beginning and ending sections are and how absolutely vital it was to pay attention to the ensemble—how we breathe together and how in tune we are with each other. How we shape phrases and build tension together.

The contrasting sections in the piece allowed us to depict quite a range of emotions, from the contemplative opening to the sharp and angry swirl of the middle section to the repetition of the opening with a newer sense of melancholy and longing after tragedy. The first violin melody from the slower sections particularly resonates with me. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to convey the emotions it made me feel. The nostalgia and the tinge of sadness while still sounding hopeful and longing. Eventually I ended up putting one of my own stories into it, thinking about it while I played, to try to create some real emotion.

Over the two years I spent with it, Regicide has come to mean a lot to me. I’m grateful to Smith for trusting me to play it and to Annesley, Anna, and Donny for being such a blast to play it with. Measure before D one more time?

If you’d like to purchase the score and/or audio for Regicide, please contact me for rates.