Spirit Voices has a duration of roughly 22 minutes and is composed in seven movements:[1]
Jiu huang ye: Con forza
Bean nighe: Largo notturno
Ellyllon: Vivace
Te Mangoroa: Largo
Coyote: Energico
Tengu: Allegro di molto
Wah'Koh - Tah: Sereno, luminoso
Style and inspiration
Stucky described the meaning behind the title and the mythological inspiration for Spirit Voices in the score program notes. He wrote:
This work takes its inspiration from the diversity of spirits and other supernatural forces from cultures around the world who manifest their presence through sound. The Irish banshee (cousin to the Scots bean nighe of my second movement) is one well-known example, but there are countless others. However, Spirit Voices borrows only the names and general behaviors of the seven spirits and gods used for its seven movements; the music itself does not borrow from these original cultures but instead comes purely from my own imagination.[1]
Richard Whitehouse of Gramophone wrote, "Spirit Voices (2003) may open with a feisty solo cadenza but thereafter the relationship between percussion and orchestra is of the subtlest, with Stucky’s depiction of deities drawn from Oriental, Celtic and Amerindian cultures merging into a sequence as evocative as it is restrained."[2] Andrew Druckenbrod of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called the piece "a remarkable percussion concerto" and added, "The powerful work concluded with a profound statement of the Native American Great Spirit treated perhaps the only way possible, with complete silence at the end. The audience, previously abounding with coughing, was rapt and no one uttered a sound for nearly a minute."[3]