

Scott Michal
Blessed Are They That Mourn
Short instrumentation: 0 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 0, str
Duration: 8'
Instrumentation details:
violin I (7 players)
violin II (6 players)
viola (5 players)
violoncello (4 players)
double bass (2 players)
Blessed Are They That Mourn
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Work introduction
On July 24, 2004, Major Bradley S. Abels, M.D., USAF, died suddenly in a traffic accident Tuesday evening, July 27, 2004, on Route 35 near Winfield, West Virginia. Major Abels was the son of Doctor Gene and Jean Allyn Abels of Gallipolis. In addition to his parents,he is survived by two children, Alex and Lani and three sisters, Barbara Abels, Hawaii; Beth Abels, Arcata, California; and Sara Abels and Son, Bradley Cline. Major Abels was born September 16, 1960 and grew up in Gallipolis, where he had many friends. He was an honor student and graduated from Gallia Academy High School in 1978, having served as President of the Senior Class. He attended Miami University at Oxford, followed by Ohio Wesleyan, graduating Suma Cum Laude from Otterbein College. Following college, he joined the Navy, attending Officers’ Candidate School. He spent six years with the Navy, stationed mostly in Hawaii and the South Pacific. Following this, he transferred into the Air Force, where he enrolled in the Uniform Services Medical School. His internship was Bethesda, Maryland. The next two years were spent in Japan, before returning to the States and entering a residency program in San Antonio, Texas. Having passed both oral and written boards, he was certified in emergency room medicine. Bradleys father, Doctor Gene Abels was a member of the Board of Directors of the Ann Carson Dater Ariel Cultural and Performing Arts Centre in Gallipolis Ohio, where I was serving as Composer in Residence. The resident professional orchestra of the Centre, The Ohio Valley Symphony asked for a work in memorium of Major Abels based on Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus. I very quickly wrote this piece and it was performed in the fall of 2004. Twenty years later, I completely rewrote the work, having always loved the opening, but as a composer who works very slowly, felt the rest of the work could be better. This revision is presented here. As in my other Fantasias on anothers work, I first "disassemble" the music and identify motifs that could be developed into something new using reharmonization, inversions, retrograde, elongation, and extension then reassemble the transform bits into a new piece. In this case, working with such a masterpiece, I included several almost direct quotes of fragments that provide a glance past my humble efforts to remind the listener of the masterpiece I started from.
What is necessary to perform this work?
String orchestra with extensive divisi and solo's