Illuminations - Ron Miller (2007) -- approx. 10 min.

Imagine that you are in a Central European Library.  You find a huge old manuscript - it is about the size of a desktop PC, and has thick wooden covers with decorated leather.  You open it, and inside are hundreds of sheets of parchment - sheepskin - with hand-drawn text in Latin, and music which looks strange, but strangely familiar.  You begin to think back to the medieval monastery where this manuscript was created, and you hear the sounds of Gregorian Chant being sung in the distance. You imagine the monk who created these pages, sitting in his stone cell on a summer evening, with parchment on his desk, a quill, a knife, and black ink made from Iron and Oak galls.
You turn to a random page, and in the upper corner, occupying nearly a quarter of the page, is the letter "A." But the "A" is not plain - it is an integral part of a colorful, complex drawing - an "Illumination."

"Illuminations" is based on a real Medieval Manuscript which is kept in the National Archive in Zagreb, Croatia.  It is an Antiphoner (that is, it contains the daily chants for the entire year) created for the use of an order of Hungarian Monks known as Paulines.  This order of monks originated in Hungary in the thirteenth century, and rapidly spread throughout the region.  This particular Antiphoner was created at a monastery in Northern Croatia in the 15th century; the monastery was closed by Emperor Joseph II of Austria in the late 18th century (the "too many notes" character from the Musical/Film "Amadeus") and the manuscript found its way to a local church, which donated it to the State Library in the early 20th century.

The manuscript is filled with many colorful Illuminations, most of them decorating large capital letters.  Many of these include a geometric design and/or plants (vines, which then grow up and down the margin, and often over the top and bottom of the page).  There are a few miniatures, however – pictures that include people, animals, and scenes.  One of my favorites is the illustration of St. George and the Dragon (on the “A” of “Audi Israel”).  Here St. George is dressed in medieval armor, and has his lance down the throat of a dragon.  There are others which have fanciful creatures – the “Z” of “Zelus domus” contains two half-man, half-wolf creatures, and a peculiar face peeking out at the bottom of the “Z.”  There are also some drawings in the manuscript which are not associated with any text, and appear to be the doodlings of bored monks.

 “Illuminations” presents a chant melody and several variations on, or interpretations of, that melody – each one reminiscent of a miniature that might decorate an initial in the manuscript.  The chant melody presented in the piece is based on the music for "Ave spes nostra..." - a chant for the Christmas period (initial Antiphon of first Vespers on Christmas Eve), and one which is of Hungarian provenance.  Gregorian chant was pretty uniform throughout Europe by the 15th century, but there were local celebrations and local chants that were unique to a given region, and this particular chant is found in Manuscripts of Hungarian origin, but not in any of the primary European sources. 

This piece was composed for the Peninsula Youth Orchestra on the occasion of their 10th anniversary, and tour of Eastern European in 2007.

Orchestration:
+3-2-*3-SSax-2 - 4-3-3-1 - Timp -4 perc - str
Percussion includes Tom Toms, Bass Drum, Bongos, Timbales, Tam-Tam, Triangle, Tambourine, Snare Drum, Orchestra Bells, and Tubular Bells (G and A).  

1 Flute Doubles Alto Flute
There is a trio of some length for two English Horns and Soprano Saxophone.  To support this, there is a Stand-alone oboe part, an oboe part doubling English Horn, and a stand-alone English horn part.  The Soprano Saxophone can be played by anyone who is not playing one of the English Horn parts.
Here is a recording, by the Peninsula Symphony (Mitchell Sardou Klein, Cond.) at the Stanford Memorial Church, in 2011: Illuminations