Machiavelli's Conscience
Subtitle: For eight musicians
General Info
Year: 2017
Duration: c. 7:30
Difficulty: VI (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Markowski Creative
Cost: Score and Parts (digital) - $80.00
Instrumentation
Full Score
Flute
Bassoon I-II
B-flat Soprano Clarinet
C Trumpet I-II
Trombone
Bass Trombone
Errata
None discovered thus far.
Program Notes
Machiavelli's Conscience refers to the Italian writer and philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli who is perhaps best known today for having written a political treatise called The Prince in the early 1500s. To quote Wikipedia: "The descriptions within The Prince have the general theme of accepting that the aims of princes -- such as glory and survival -- can justify the use of immoral means to achieve those ends." Think: Frank Underwood from House of Cards. This is where the word "Machiavellian" comes from. When a person is described as being Machiavellian, he or she is allegedly "cunning, scheming, and unscrupulous, especially in politics or in advancing one's career."
The more I discovered Machiavelli (who wasn't known for always writing this darkly ... he wrote comedies and plays and songs, too), the more I became fascinated by how a person like this could possibly come to some of these morally outrageous but politically justified conclusions. At its core, I think the octet imagines the cogs of such a conflicted mind at work as it searches for a way to justify these radical ideas in the name of power and ego.
Machiavelli's Conscience premiered on April 23, 2017, at the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois, under the direction of Sean Smith.
- Program Note by composer
Dedicated to Elizabeth and Steve Peterson.
- Program Note from score
Media
State Ratings
None discovered thus far.
Performances
To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project
- Arizona State University (Tempe) Wind Ensemble (Kristen Zelenak, conductor) - 24 May 2021
- Combined U.S. Navy Fleet Bands (Midwest Clinic) (Kelly Cartwright, conductor) - 21 December 2018 (2018 Midwest Clinic)
- Neoteric Chamber Winds (St. Paul, Minn.) (Cory Near, conductor) - 14 August 2018
- University of South Alabama (Mobile) Faculty and Friends (William Peterson, conductor) - 29 January 2018
- University of Illinois (Champaign) (Sean Smith, conductor) – 23 April 2017 *Premiere Performance*
Works for Winds by This Composer
Adaptable Music
- Drawing Mars (Flex instrumentation) (2019/2021)
- Finding the Words: ii. Undefined (Flex instrumentation) (2019/2020)
All Wind Works
- As Midnight on a Moonless Night (2011)
- Blue Ambience (2003)
- Brooklyn Air (2016)
- Camerado (2013)
- The Cave You Fear (2014)
- City Trees (2012)
- Desert Sage (2022)
- Drawing Mars (2019)
- Drawing Mars (Flex instrumentation) (2019/2021)
- Dreamland (2011)
- Elixir (2012)
- Embers (2015)
- Famishius Fantasticus (2012)
- Finding the Words
- Finding the Words: ii. Undefined (Flex instrumentation) (2019/2020)
- Forever Summer (2016)
- Instinctive Travels (2009)
- JoyRiDE (2005/2014)
- Machiavelli's Conscience (2017)
- Monk by the Sea (2015)
- Reckoning (2017)
- Remember the Molecules (2013)
- Saturn Returns (2014)
- Shadow Rituals (2006)
- Shine (2010)
- Street Flair (2022)
- Summoning Graces (2019)
- Sunny-Side Up (2018)
- Tidal Forces (2010)
- The Tonic of Wildness (2017)
- Turkey in the Straw (2008)
- Unfamiliar Territory (2013)
- Walden (2011)
- You Are Cordially Invited (2016)
Resources
- "MACHIAVELLI‘S CONSCIENCE by Michael Markowski (USA)." WASBE. Web. (Featured as WASBE’s Composition of the Week, 6 January 2020). Accessed 17 January 2023
- Pease, Andy. "Machiavelli’s Conscience by Michael Markowski." Wind Band Literature. 9 May 2019.
- Perusal score