Solo: harp - A Hard World for Little Things

Ensemble: solo harp

Duration: 13 minutes

Written for: Chelsea Lane

Premiere: ArtPrize 2025, Grand Rapids, MI

Note:

“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.”

A biblical warning from Matthew 7:15, which opens the film The Night of the Hunter, resonates as deeply today as it did in 1955, when the film arrived in theaters at the end of the McCarthy era. Based on a true story, The Night of the Hunter follows a serial killer who poses as a charismatic preacher in order to win the trust of his victims.

This piece for solo harp is written in three short movements, each loosely inspired by the film. The first, a moto perpetuo subtitled “Right Hand, Left Hand,” imagines an endless tussle between good and evil, the two sides of human nature. The second movement, “Hangman’s Lullaby,” is a lullaby in hypnotic, unstable triple meter, winding into a nightmarish fugue before giving way to an unsettlingly bright children’s song. The last movement, “Wolf,” in rondo form, spins a psalm-like melody that floats above gathering storm clouds.

I’m always fascinated by the double-edged nature of storytelling. Stories allow us to grapple with difficult subjects via a secret side door in our consciousness; to fantasize, to escape. But it also allows us to warp the truth, to be seduced by an alternate version of reality. A good storyteller with a hidden agenda is dangerous: a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

This composer, on the other hand, has no intentions of leading the listener astray—though I suppose that's exactly what a wolf would say.