MARLON DANIEL

• Sisler: The Second Coming

FEATURE ARTICLE IN THE ORGAN - SPRING 2015 [ISSUE NO. 371]

“...there are moments of great beauty and wondrous expectation, ...The sound is excellent... all is well, and many will be pleased with this.”

Steven Ritter, Audiophile Audition [April 2014]

THE SECOND COMING - A COMPOSER’S PERSPECTIVE
With rising hostilities, both international and on individual, intimate levels, many Christians believe that we are heading for a major crisis in worldwide evolution. One group feels that the fabled “Battle of Armageddon” began in the mid-nineteenth century with the American Civil War – extremely costly in terms of human life. They feel we are in increasingly dire need of a return of the Messiah to right things and, possibly, terminate the world altogether. And so, we look to Christ’s prophecies and the Book of Revelation for enlightenment. Whether one agrees with Christianity or its dicta for the future of the world – having one’s own views as to how things are going – all can agree that we are having increasingly more serious and all-embracingproblems than ever before in the history of the world. These thoughts impressed conductor Marlon Daniel, who discussed with me the writing of a large orchestral work on the subject of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, a concept that soon  expanded to all Seven Seals from the Book of Revelation and subsequently the creation of an entire oratorio devoted the Second Coming. Although a great challenge, I composed the work with ardor and fascination. The work includes self-explanatory titles. Fabled in the minds of most people, it includes specific aspects, in ancient terms, of the severe hardships endured, and natural  phenomena of epic proportions. Although there is, naturally, nothing that outlines current day technologies of mass destruction, the idea of utter annihilation with the sparing of the “saved” and virtuous persons applies to the faithful of all times and places. [Hampson Sisler, November 2013]

Hampson Sisler is one of the most prolific composers living today, with a catalog of more than one hundred works for solo instruments, organ, voice, choir and orchestra. His music has been performed in the United States and internationally, including in Argentina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Portugal, Israel and Ukraine, under the direction of conductors including Marlon Daniel, Arkady Leytush, Kirk Trevor and Samuel Wong. Born in Yonkers, New York, in 1932, he began to show a prodigious talent at an early age and by age five was able to play keyboard by ear. By age 12 he was taken under the tutelage of David McK Williams and Norman Coke-Jephcott and began performing professionally on organ, and conducting choruses. He earned a licentiate in Organ and Related Subjects from the Trinity College of Music in London at age 16 and achieved the fellowship rank in the American Guild of Organists at 17 – the youngest ever for this distinction. Today, in addition composing, Sisler maintains a career as an organist and choral director. He has held positions at 17 churches, most notably the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, where Abraham Lincoln was an occasional attendee, and the Central Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, where Charles Ives served in the same position in the early 1900s. Currently, Sisler is the musical director at the historic St. James Episcopal Church in Elmhurst, New York. Recent compositions have been performed in Bulgaria, Israel, Prague, Russia and the United States. The majority of his orchestral works have been recorded on the MSR Classics label. Sisler’s music is published by H.W. Gray Co., Jos. Fischer & Co., Belwin Mills, World Library, Laurendale Press and Morning Star.

One of the most dynamic conductors of his generation, Marlon Daniel maintains an active international career. Currently Music Director of Ensemble du Monde, Music director of the Colour of Music Festival and Principal Guest Conductor of the Sofia Sinfonietta, he has appeared in some of the most prestigious venues in and the United States and Europe, including Carnegie Hall, the Rudolfinum in Prague and several international music festivals. He has also performed alongside internationally renowned artists, including Deborah Voigt, Julian Milkis and Magali Léger. Daniel has received numerous prizes and awards, including the Mabel Henderson Memorial Grant for Foreign Experience, a Rose Hanus Fellowship, the 2008 Voice of the Artist Award from the United Nations and an Honorary Key to the City of Chicago for Outstanding Musical Achievement. He is also a winner of the 2009 John and Mary Virginia Foncannon Conducting Award and a 2010 Dove Award for Outstanding Musical Achievement from the Global Association of Women for the Arts. A champion of music  by living and neglected composers, Daniel has conducted the premieres of works by  numerous contemporary composers, including Giya Kancheli, Libby Larsen, Fred Onovwerosuoke, William Grant Still and Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges. Educated in both the United States and Europe, Daniel has earned degrees the Manhattan School of Music, Le Conservatoire Américain (France), Centro de Estudios Musicales Isaac Albéniz (Spain) and the Prague Academy and Conservatory, where he received his formative training in conducting while serving as Associate Conductor of the Praga Sinfonietta.

  HAMPSON SISLER (b.1932)
THE SECOND COMING

PART I – PROLOGUE
Prophesies 1 and 2 [Book of Matthew 24:1-51]

PART II – THE SEVEN SEALS
The First Seal - The First Horseman: Pestilence [Revelation 6:1-2]
The Second Seal - The Second Horseman: War [Revelation 6:3-4]
The Third Seal - The Third Horseman: Famine [Revelation 6:5-6]
The Fourth Seal - The Fourth Horseman: Death [Revelation 6:7-8]
The Fifth Seal: White-Robed Martyrs [Revelation 6:9-11]
The Sixth Seal: Hiding from God’s Wrath [Revelation 6:12-17]
The Seventh Seal: Seven Trumpeting Angels [Revelation 7:6-13]

PART III – BOWLS OF WRATH [Revelation 16:2-21]
First bowl (worshiping the beast)
Second bowl (sea turns to blood)
Third bowl (just judgments of the Holy One)
Fourth bowl (sun scorches the unjust)
Fifth bowl (kingdom of the beast, plunged into darkness)
Sixth bowl (Euphrates dries up; demons, false prophets and Armageddon)
Seventh bowl (“It is done!”: lightning, earthquake, giant hailstones; God’s wrath)
 



MSR Classics