The Marriage of Heaven and Hell for Mixed Nonet (1994)

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is a setting of three proverbs from William Blake’s book of the same name. The piece was commissioned and premiered by the Philadelphia ensemble Relâche in 1994. The first section, “Opposition Is True Friendship,” sets up the classic son clave pattern of Latin music, but it's offset metrically in a different way for each performer, so the perceived downbeats of each person's part are in opposition to one another. The second section is a response to the proverb “Energy is Eternal Delight.” The last section is a setting of the proverb “You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.” The piece devolves into the Bach chorale “Es ist genug” (it is enough) at the end.

– Eve Beglarian

1. Opposition is true friendship.
2. Energy is eternal delight.
3. You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough

Texts by William Blake.