Four Verses for Six Violins was composed in winter 2021, following the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol Building. While following the news coverage in the aftermath of the attack, I was fascinated by the mixture of right-wing anger and pagan mythology and iconography present in some of the protesters. This suggested an image for a piece that would take folk material as a starting point, in a similar vein to my earlier works “In sunshine or in shadow…” and “Black is the color…”. I used an English folk tune of unknown origin The truth sent from above as the basis for the piece, and constructed a set of four verses which reach an ecstatic climax in the third statement of the tune. Throughout the work, the folk melody is surrounded by a swirling mass of chords, sputtering utterances, and threatening pizzicato passages. These textures create a dark marsh, or a swamp if you will, where our protagonist’s incantations become increasingly feverish and frantic, culminating in a four-part harmonization built on harmonic echoes of Messiaen. The work concludes with a breathless and broken final statement, with our presentation of the tune shrouded by a fractured wreckage of harmonic material, now more evocative of shards of crystal and stellar detritus than an earth-bound bog.