John Mackey (b. 1973) once famously compared the band and the orchestra to the kind of person a composer might be attracted to at a party. The orchestra seems ideal for you, but clearly feels superior and talks a lot about a whole slew of exes (like Dvorak and Beethoven). The band, meanwhile, is loud and brash, but loves everything you do and can’t wait to play your stuff, the newer, the better! (I’ve rather poorly paraphrased Mackey – it’s best understood in his original blog post on the subject).
With this attitude and his prodigious talent, John Mackey has become a superstar composer among band directors. He has even eclipsed his former teacher, John Corigliano, by putting out dozens of new band works, including a symphony, since 2005. All are challenging, and many are innovative. Mackey’s works for wind ensemble and orchestra have been performed around the world, and have won numerous composition prizes. His Redline Tango, originally for orchestra and then transcribed by the composer for band, won him the American Bandmasters Assocation/Ostwald Award in 2005, making him, then 32, the youngest composer ever to receive that prize. He won again in 2009 with Aurora Awakes. More recently, he was honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters with the 2018 Wladimir and Rhoda Lakond Award in Music. His compositional style is fresh and original. I once heard him state that he counted the band Tool among his musical influences.
John Mackey publishes his own music through his website. This doubles as his blog, which is very informative for anyone looking for a composer’s perspective on new music (and pictures of food). He is featured on Wikipedia and the Wind Repertory Project. He is also on Twitter and has a Facebook composer page.
Some treasures are heavy with human tears was written in 2021 in response to commission from a consortium of 15 organizations led by Barbara Siler and the Bellbrook (Ohio) High School Bands. Jake Wallace gives a thorough program note (from Mackey’s website):
(CONTENT WARNING: This program note describes an act of public mass violence and may be traumatic or uncomfortable to some readers. Discretion is advised.)
At 1:05 AM on Sunday, August 4, 2019 in the Oregon Historic District of Dayton, Ohio, a man armed with a semi-automatic AM-15 approached a crowded neighborhood bar and opened fire. In under thirty seconds, he fired 41 rounds, killing nine people and injuring another 17.
That’s where the story of John Mackey’s Some treasures are heavy with human tears begins.
One of the victims of the shooting was a young woman who had played trumpet in her high school band in nearby Bellbrook. The Bellbrook program reached out to Mackey to commission a work that would commemorate the tragedy, a task he approached with some reluctance:
I’ve been asked on several occasions to write pieces in response to tragedies, but I’ve rarely felt like it was appropriate. Something about this, though—happening in Dayton, where I’ve been many times, and so close to Columbus, where I grew up—that I felt like I wanted to try to say something musically, even though I was at a loss for what I could say verbally. Fortunately, Abby (my spouse) found this incredible title, which says so much before the music even starts. The last thing the community needed was a piece of music that relived the event. The piece isn’t trying to sound like what happened; it’s trying to convey what it feels like to know that it happened.
The piece is not programmatic. Rather, it exists in abstraction: a meditation on grief. In framing the work in this way, Mackey’s music transcends elegizing a singular horrific event and instead provides an artistic representation of how we cope with all tragedies, both those that are intensely personal and the ones that are communal. It explores a wide range of emotions, from denial through shock, fury, and anguish before finally finding an incomplete peace.
Some treasures are heavy with human tears begins with a simple motivic gesture: a rocking oscillation between flute and vibraphone that sounds akin to a lullaby. This principal motive carries throughout the piece, acting as the listener’s avatar through the emotional journey. A melody spins out from it, accompanied by ethereal ringing provided by crystal glasses and whirly tubes, and although the overall mood is one of melancholy, the atmosphere is also peaceful until a disorienting fog of trombone glissandi passes over. The songlike melody continues, at times abruptly shifting from the resigned mood of the home key of G minor to the distantly bright C major, evoking a fleeting remembrance of a more hopeful spirit, before just as quickly dissipating back. The simplicity of the opening returns, but this time fuller, with more voices joining before the glissando cloud returns (this time augmented by timpani), ushering in a new mood: confusion. The opening gesture reemerges, ceaselessly rocking in a rhythmic nature, oblivious to a building torment in the surrounding harmonies which become brasher and angrier as the piece approaches its dramatic climax. The apex of the piece is a wail, acknowledging the reality of the trauma in a moment of agony bordering on rage. This too, however, subsides, and the peacefulness of the beginning of the work returns to stay with one exception: as the final phrase of the work cadences and the last tones decay, a single muted trumpet rises from the silence in a bright flash and is suddenly extinguished.
A performance, with score to follow along, by Mark Norman and the Piedmont Wind Symphony:
See Wikipedia for more on the Dayton shooting. Some treasures are heavy with human tears is also on J. W. Pepper – the required whirlies can be purchased here. For resources on gun violence prevention, visit the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Children’s Defense Fund, and so much more.