“The all too familiar hymns of my childhood have come back to haunt me,” wrote American composer Ingram Marshall (1942-2022) above the program note for his 1992 work for string quartet, Evensongs. Marshall went on to describe the six sections of Evensongs as “hymnodic meditations” concerning twilight.
The concluding section, Fast falls the eventide: Wanderer’s Night Song is haunting and atmospheric. Frequently, Marshall blended elements of minimalism and electronic music (listen to the 1982 Fog Tropes). Wanderer’s Night Song is purely acoustic, but its soundscape is still otherworldly. It is music of a composer constantly in search of “the dark and the beautiful and the endless.”
