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Interview on Hong Kong “PBS” about my portrait concert and percussion music with The Up:strike Project, featuring a performance of one sonnet with percussionist Matthew Lau and soprano Joanne Shao!
The performance scores are available as a PDF Version and On-Demand Print.
As a part of my residency in Hong Kong with The Upstrike:Project, my Sonnets for Soprano, Percussion and Piano was premiered as a part of my portrait concert. I performed piano with Matthew Lau on percussion and soprano Joanne Shao. Since NoExit premiered the first chamber ensemble version in 2023, I’ve added three new songs. The performance scores are available as a PDF Version and On-Demand Print.
Photos Credit: Jeff Cheng (IG handle: ffejc)
Program Notes
Ever since a quixotic beauty caught the eye of an itinerant, 14th century ex-priest, the sonnet has been to poetic expressions of love as bread is to butter. It is an almost protean form, something so innate that whether or not Petrarch fell for his Laura a similar structure would surely have emerged in some other guise at nearly the same time. While the language and style of sonneteers continuously evolves, this timeless form has retained its grip on poetic minds for centuries. From Shakespeare and Donne to Rilke and Neruda, the sonnet persists as a deft expression of human experience in all its vicissitudes. Into the pressure cooker of its compact formal apparatus, the complexity, ambiguity and chaos of humanity emerges reshaped and reborn into powerfully concise, crystalline poetic expression.
Writing in the first half of the 20th century, Edna St. Vincent Millay vigorously takes up this tradition.At a time of high poetic modernism, Millay injects the ancient form with vitality and stylistic ingenuity. In her hands the sonnet feels fresh and urgent. The words are organic and vital, yet also surgically precise in their layered meaning, wit and sheer beauty. Millay’s sonnets are shifting and bold, fearlessly expressing a radically feminine perspective, while at the same time gesturing towards universal themes of love and desire. In writing my piece, Sonnets, I primarily wanted to foreground Millay’s brilliant words. The poetry is so good, so captivating, direct and powerful that it seemed my job, as composer, was simply to provide a musical scaffolding for Millay’s candescent verse. To that end I’ve put together five songs that hopefully allow you to appreciate and be moved by these beautiful words.
Sonnets was commissioned by the No Exit New Music Ensemble. The first five songs were premiered April 7, 2023 at SPACES in Ohio City, OH by Lauren Pearl, Soprano, and the No Exit New Music Ensemble.
This past month, I was thankful to have a residency in Hong Kong with The Upstrike:Project, culminating in a Portrait Concert. Working with them on the new work Yet in my sad heart was a highlight. Here’s some photos and videos from their rehearsals!
The work is now available here: https://www.roberthonstein.com/yet-in-my-sad-heart
Program Notes
Yet in my sad heart for percussion quartet and track draws inspiration from the opening of Chopin’s Prelude No. 8 in F sharp Minor. The title comes from pianist Alfred Cortot’s vivid description of the prelude: “The snow falls, the wind screams, and the storm rages; yet in my sad heart,the tempest is the worst to behold.”
Chopin’s Prelude, marked Molto agitato, is a powerful and technically demanding work. It features a continuous flow of thirty-second notes in the right hand against triplet sixteenths in the left, creating a tempestuous, virtuosic soundscape. Within this intricate polyrhythm, a melancholic melody emerges, giving voice to the “sad heart” described by Cortot.
My piece, Yet in my sad heart, offers a hazy, dream-like reinterpretation of the Chopin. Fragments of the Prelude arise from the keyboard percussion instruments, slowed down and stretched out against long, sustained synth tones. Meanwhile, as the music shifts into different key areas, the same four chords that began the Chopin, slowly cycle in the background. We stay in this space, a web of percussion, long synth chords and pulsating rhythms, until eventually a delicate cloud of piano arpeggiations in the track take over, slowly enveloping the live musicians. Finally, the piece culminates in a stream-of-consciousness soundscape of swirling, ghostly tones mixed with real world audio samples, eerily concluding this strange, Chopin-inspired fever dream.
SONNETS: Robert Honstein Composer Portrait Concert
Delighted to announce this concert featuring all works of Emmy-nominted composer Robert Honstein, including new arrangements of his works, AND A BRAND NEW PERCUSSION QUARTET written for Up:Strike. This concert will mark Robert’s 7-day residency in Hong Kong. He will be working with the students at the HKAPA and members of Up:Strike. Get your TIX NOW!
2025. June 7 (SAT) 8 pm Sheung Wan Civic Centre Theatre (5/f)
Louisville’s Music for a Purpose recently premiered my arrangement of Olmsted’s second movement for string quartet. Enjoy!
Stream on Paramount Plus
The Real Charlie Chaplin is now streaming on Paramount+.