Chamber Music
The following titles are representative works from a catalog of chamber music by Frederick Frahm. For a list of additional works, please contact the composer. Click on a link below to see sample pages or to hear an MP3 clip. To order your own copy of any title, click on the order music link. You will be directed to the composer by e-mail, or to a retailer website for published editions.
Septem verba (violin & organ)
Composed in 2011 as an alternatim work for the Reading of the St. John Passion on Good Friday, this music presents meditation on the Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross. Each of the movements features evocative music and often virtuosic writing for the violin. The collection was written for and dedicated to Violinist David Felberg who premiered the work with the composer as organist in 2011.
Quarai Chapel (string quartet & organ)
A moving work for organ and strings that captures an emotional response to the impising presence of the church at Quarai in the Salinas National Monument in Northern New Mexico. The music is minimal in character and takes its time developing an ABA formal structure. Playable either on a continuo organ or a larger instrument with pedals, the organ part is sustained and accessible to most players. A version for organ and string trio (vln, vla, and cello) is also available.
Indian Earth (wind trio & organ)
Indian Earth, after a book of poetry by Santa Fe poet Witter Bynner, is music for organ, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon. The music is reflective of themes found in Bynner's poetry which explores the mystical cultures and resplendent terrain of the American Southwest. An underlying tenor of this collection is the complex relationship between the earth and humanity, and metaphorically the discord between native and colonial peoples. Bynner captures the essence of these relationships in this way:
“It is the earth itself that hems you round against intruders alien to the earth, that brings you heaven under a shadowy tree, curves heaven to your arm and lets you lie close to its living thorn. The crown is yours, not theirs. You know the one divinity, the only death, the offering of the heart to the cruel earth, the love, the consummation.”
The three movements of the work progress from a quiet melancholy to exuberance, from darkness to light.
Frahm makes use of an architectural approach to music composition in this piece, as in the building of an adobe wall brick by brick. Self-contained musical structures, often in four bar units, are symmetrically arranged as a technique of musical development. The final movement, ‘Alleluias’, is based in part on plainchant tone 6 from the Graduale Romanum.
Super Flumina Babylonis (oboe, violin, viola & cello)
A lush and expressive work for oboe and strings based on psalm 137. A quotation from Wolfgang Dachstein's 1525 melody 'An Wasserflüssen Babylon' is traded through the ensemble in the last half of the 6 minute work. The oboe performs as primus inter pares among the other instruments. This music was commissioned as a birthday gift in 2007 for Frosty Blech, who was at that time celebratiing his 60th birthday.
Archangels (trumpet & organ)
This work for trumpet and organ (manuals only) may be played as a set, or individually at the performer's discretion. Total duration is circa 11 minutes. Organ registrations are designed for a modest two manual instrument without pedal. For performances on instruments of larger specifications, the use of a broader palette of color is encouraged, including an ad libitum employment of the pedal division. A new version for trumpet and string orchestra is also available.
St. Michael
...and at that time shall Michael stand up,
the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people:
and there shall be a time of trouble,
such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time:
and at that time thy people shall be delivered,
every one that shall be found written in the book. Daniel 12:1-3 (KJV)
...for an angel went down at a certain season
into the pool called Bethesda,
and troubled the water:
whosoever then first stepped in,
after the troubling of the water,
was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. John 5:4 (KJV)
Then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked,
and behold a certain man clothed in linen,
whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz:
his body also was like the beryl,
and his face as the appearance of lightning,
and his eyes as lamps of fire,
and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass,
and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude. Daniel 10:5-6 (KJV)