Rat Race

for “Soldier’s Tale” mixed chamber ensemble

I wrote this piece as a companion to Stravinsky’s “The Soldier’s Tale” for the 2024 Wintergreen Music Festival. In that Faustian tale, the soldier trades his violin, his soul, for a book that will make him rich. This prompted me to think about the equivaltents to such a trade in the real contemporary world, one being the proverbial rat race. Work is a beautiful thing when done out of free will and with pure intentions, but these conditions seem ever more elusive. So many people work for the money, the social status, or the distraction from the personal or interpersonal problems in their lives. We can so easily be swept into a mindless routine, not because it’s the best way to live, but because it’s the easiest. This piece explores the relentlessness and confinement of the rat race, presenting many potential “outs” but always returning to the same hocketing groove.

This was the first piece I wrote with groove as its central idea (soon followed by "Reel Rebellion" for string orchestra). Starting with such an unusual instrumentation made the perfect opportunity to try something new. The resulting musical texture is a patchwork of influences from Igor Stravinsky himself to Louis Andriessen, salsa, funk, and Klezmer. Wherever the aesthetic tries to escape, the groove will follow.

While writing the piece, I had a lesson with composer Daron Hagen, who posited: “It’s fun, but I think Charles Ives is sitting on the front porch of this piece with a Scotch in his hand, waiting for you do something totally wild.” This advice prompted the drum breaks near the piece’s conclusion. I took the ridiculousness up another notch when I presented a second performance in February 2025 at Oberlin Conservatory. A few days before the first rehearsal, I attended a Cleveland Orchestra concert at Severance Hall. They closed the program with a delightful rendition of Ravel’s “La valse” under the baton of Thomas Guggeis. There was a great deal of dramatic tempo manipulation at cadences and sectional junctures that certainly made me smile, even laugh, along with some 2,000 others in the audience. I decided we needed more of that in “Rat Race”, and promptly added bars with those opportunities when I arrived home, much to the chagrin of my “band.”

I’m sure I will return to this piece to embellish with yet more theatrics in the years to come. I hope it will be programed alongside Stravinsky’s work again, as it is my attempt to do what he did best: deliver a poignant message with a smile on his face.

• Matthew Thomas Brown