Like an Altar with 9,000 Robot Attendants

Like an Altar with 9,000 Robot Attendants, Ryan Lindveit (2016) 6'"
for wind ensemble

Grade 5-6

The wind ensemble version of Like an Altar with 9,000 Robot Attendants was commissioned by a consortium of wind ensembles organized by H. Robert Reynolds, to whom the work is dedicated.

Like an Altar with 9,000 Robot Attendants was inspired by Ray Bradbury’s short story “There Will Come Soft Rains” (1950). The futuristic story describes a computer-controlled house, in which robots perform a myriad of tasks such as cooking breakfast, cleaning house, and telling time. In Bradbury’s future, all humans have been destroyed by a nuclear bomb, and this house is the only building that still stands amidst the rubble. Nonetheless, the house’s robots remain dedicated to their duties, even in the absence of the house’s human occupants. As the author puts it, “...inside, the house was like an altar with nine thousand robot attendants, big and small, servicing, attending, singing in choirs, even though the gods had gone away and the ritual was meaningless.” Despite this tragedy, Bradbury’s futurist prose remains characteristically exuberant in describing these household robots—a tension which calls to mind the satirical ebullience of Stanley Kubrick’s Cold War satire Dr. Strangelove. My piece lives in the same brazenly ecstatic spirit as Bradbury’s story and Kubrick’s film. Sometimes the only response to misfortune is a confident, if performative, full-teeth smile.

Instrumentation: Piccolo, flute 1-2, oboe 1-2, english horn, bassoon 1-2, contrabassoon, Eb clarinet, Bb clarinet 1-3, bass clarinet 1-2, soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, trumpet 1-3, horn 1-4, trombone 1-3, bass trombone, euphonium, tuba, timpani, percussion 1-6, piano/celesta, harp, contrabass