Jessie Montgomery’s “Hymn for Everyone”
Notes by TŌN bassoonist Peter Houdalis
Jessie Montgomery has quickly risen to become one of the premiere American classical composers of the decade. She began her compositional career at NYU in 2012, and since then has accumulated numerous accolades and commissions from many major orchestras worldwide. In 2021, she was appointed as the Meade Composer in Residence of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. It was through this appointment that her Hymn For Everyone came to be.
The piece began as an orchestral suite commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 2021. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Montgomery was dealing with writer’s block and began questioning her views on Western classical music. Then, spurred on by the death of her mother, she completely reworked the suite and centered the piece around a hymn she had written in 2020.
The lyrical hymn is the centerpiece of the work. It is introduced plainly by the viola and french horn, then travels throughout each section of the orchestra. Jessie describes the piece as a meditation for orchestra in which she transforms the hymn theme through timbral changes using different instrumentations.
A similar concept can be heard in Ravel’s Bolero, where he takes two melodic ideas and develops them strictly through orchestration. Instead of the snare rhythm that underpins Bolero and characterises it as a Spanish dance, Montgomery uses a different style. The hymn is accompanied by a slow, descending scale that repeats and intensifies as the hymn’s texture is strengthened throughout the orchestra.