The Divine Comedy (Smith)
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The Divine Comedy Symphony is Robert W. Smith’s first complete symphonic band symphony. It was based on Danté’s epic, The Divine Comedy. Smith had studied this, and Homer’s Odyssey, at Troy.
The classical symphony consists of four movements – each following a distinct pattern. The symphony’s movements are as follows:
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[edit] Movement One: “The Inferno”
“The Inferno” was commissioned by the James Madison University Band, and was completely published in 1995. The movement travels well with the actual book, using musical references to the events in select cantos of Inferno. An oboe solo in D-flat Major begins the symphony, and enormous crescendos, and towering blocks of sound quickly lead the audience into Danté’s vision of hell. A furious ostinato is used three times in this piece. First by flutes, then clarinets, and finally by the saxophones. In typical overture form, the song slows down (as Danté makes his way down in the very depths of hell). Each of the movements in this symphony have a vocal effect, and in the Inferno, it is howling in pain, balanced rhythmically with whip cracks. The song takes a coda, and finishes with an extremely difficult timpani solo (Many performances however, have omitted this solo, and instead just have the timpani rolling into silence) The oboe, piccolo, and timpani have a lot of attention in this song.
