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			David Stybr: Life and Afterlife: II. Nocturnal Procession (6:00)
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David Stybr: Engineer and Composer

It's Left Brain vs. Right Brain: best 2 falls out of 3

Life and Afterlife: Four Elegies for Soprano and Orchestra:
II. Nocturnal Procession (6:00)

The Observer: Night is fallen, and the Moon is risen. The Sun is hidden beneath the Earth. Now the Stars glow from among the heavens: Stardust of death and stardust of birth. And from the ashes, The Soul shall rise forevermore! Life is fallen, but the Soul is risen. The Body hidden beneath the Earth. Now the Soul glows from among the heavens: An endless round of death and rebirth. And from the ashes, The Soul shall live forevermore! Gently comes the soul to its rest. Tenderly, eternally is blessed. As night follows day, Sleep shall follow life's fray. What was created must soon pass away!

Blooming in the Sun's holy rays, Life renews and blossoms in a blaze. Storms bring precious rain, Blent with laughter and pain. What has passed away must soon rise again! Soon the Sun shall shine upon the waters, Upon the mountains, high o'er the Earth, Growing upward, climbing toward the Heavens: Replacing death with returning birth. And from the ashes, The Soul shall shine forevermore! Sleep now, soon to bloom and renew, For the end is a beginning too, To another plane: The Eternal Domain. What has passed away shall triumph again!

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Right Brain: "Both your themes in the orchestral exposition have 5-bar phrases, and you can't make up your mind whether the key is D Minor or E Minor? You even squeeze in traces of G Minor and A Minor."

Left Brain: "The tonalities are an upward struggle. The movement begins in D Minor, and then climbs a step into E Minor. Then it falls to D Minor again, climbs to E Minor, and climbs another whole step into F-Sharp Minor in the lyrical central Rêverie section. It briefly reaches the relative major key of the piece, A Major, but falls down into its dominant minor: the home key of D Minor again. At the end, the music builds toward A Major again, but D Minor wins at the last second."

Right Brain: "As if those tonic gymnastics weren't enough, the real fun came in the central Rêverie section, as I transformed Themes I & II into a contrapuntal accompaniment. Next I experimented with fragments of both themes, and they melded into a soaringly syncopated but lyrically passionate 11-bar melody in F-Sharp Minor! This piece was completed in May 2002 in Washington, DC."