A Dolby 5.1 Surround-Sound DVD of Music for the End of Time is available through  Polymnia Press.  The video and sound quality is far superior to YouTube.  Polyminia also sells the performance materials.  The downloadable PDF score looks pixelated on screen but prints beautifully on legal size paper. For questions or problems, contact William Osborne.

Program Notes for Music for the End of Time

“Music for the End of Time” is a 52-minute work for trombone, video and quadraphonic electronics based on the Book of Revelation.  We were drawn to the Book of Revelation more by its rich imagery and symbolism than any sort of doctrinaire religious belief. Ultimately, the most meaningful understandings of the apocalyptic have little to do with destruction, but with vanquishing our own human limitations. Through the apocalyptic, we transcend not so much the universe, as our own self. We learn that in the infinite expanse of this world, our human passions are often the sheerest folly, and that the truest path to justice is through forgiveness, compassion and love.  Perhaps that understanding is what St. John hoped to symbolize in his vision of "The Woman Clothed with the Sun." The ultimate value of transcendental experience might be that it shows us that nothing is more precious or transcendent that the simple beauty of life itself. 

These are the movements and the verses they are based upon:

I. A Door Was Opened in Heaven, 
After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter. (Rev. 4:1.)

II. The Sea of Glass 
And before the throne was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. (Rev. 4.6)

III. The Four Horsemen 
And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone. (Rev. 9:17)

IV. As It Were A Trumpet Talking 
After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter. (Rev. 4:1.)

V. The White Beast 
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. (Rev. 6:8)

VI. A Woman Clothed With the Sun 
And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. (Rev. 12:1)

Still Images from the DVD

Click on an image to enlarge it.