Pulse

Program notes

About the Work

Pulse, composed in 2017 and expanded for full orchestra in 2019 (when the Nashville Symphony gave the premiere), is a vivid orchestral curtain-raiser by the young American composer Brian Raphael Nabors. As its title suggests, the piece is all about rhythm: Nabors describes it as ‘an episodic rhapsody’ exploring different phases and colourful variants of rhythm, all held together by a single, unwavering pulse that runs through the whole work like a heartbeat. Each episode, he says, is meant to evoke a different scene of life: a buzzing modern city, a teeming wilderness, the endless depths of the ocean.

Nabors’s musical language draws on his roots in gospel, jazz and R&B as much as on the classical tradition, and Pulse crackles with that energy. It makes an ideal, high-octane opening to a programme celebrating Black American composers, announcing the evening’s spirit of vitality and forward motion.

What to Listen For

Listen for the pulse itself, the steady, driving rhythmic engine that underpins the entire piece and never lets up. Around it, Nabors spins a sequence of contrasting ‘episodes,’ so listen for the changes of scene: bustling, syncopated passages full of urban energy; broader, more atmospheric stretches; and the colourful, jazz- and gospel-tinged harmonies that flavour his orchestral writing. It is bright, kinetic and immediately engaging, music designed to grab the ear and set the body moving.