I like to call this work “the soundtrack to a film that doesn’t exist.”

I generally compose music in a format I call “asynchronous improvisation” - where I start the process of writing simultaneous with recording, and the work evolves over time into something "finished."

With this most recent work, I wanted to truly COMPOSE something, the way I used to do it long ago - sitting at a spinet piano with pencil and manuscript paper. I also wanted to write something far more “orchestral” than my previous works, meaning I wanted to use both the general instrumentation of a full orchestra but also follow one of the standard symphonic forms, in this case the 19th-century form known as “symphonic poem” or “tone poem.” This rather loose form allowed composers such as Franz Liszt to embody the character of a poem, painting, scene, or emotion in a musical composition.


The story I chose is the ancient Chinese ghost story “Seijo and Her Two Souls,” also called “Seijo and Her Soul Are Separated.” I first encountered this story via a Zen koan, Case #35 from the “Mumonkan,” which reads as follows:
Goso said to his monks, "Seijo's soul separated from her being. Which was the real Seijo?"
Of course, Goso’s disciples living in ancient China would know this story well. Modern Western people, maybe not so much. So, here is the story in brief:
Seijo was a beautiful young girl living with her father Chokan. Her best friend was her handsome cousin Ochu. Chokan often remarked how well they got along and joked that they should someday be married. The children took him seriously, and over time, fell in love with each other. When Seijo came of age, however, Chokan arranged her marriage to another man. Seijo and Ochu were heartbroken, and in a fury, Ochu left without saying goodbye, taking his boat down the Yangtze River to avoid seeing Seijo with another man. As he was floating downstream in the middle of the night, he saw a figure running along the riverbank. Bringing the boat to shore, he realized to his delight that it was Seijo pursuing him. The lovers embraced, and Seijo boarded his boat. They traveled to a far away land, where they got married and had two children. As the years passed, though, both Seijo and Ochu felt remorse for having left Chokan under such circumstances, and pledged to return home to beg for forgiveness. Ochu left Seijo on the boat, and went to Chokan’s house, wher e he dropped to his knees and begged forgiveness for disappearing and taking Seijo with him. Chokan was perplexed, however, and stated that on the night Ochu disappeared, Seijo had taken to her bed and hadn’t spoken or moved in years, as if she were drugged. Ochu defiantly insisted that Seijo was on the boat, and left to retrieve her and bring her back. Meanwhile, Chokan entered Seijo’s room and related to her what had just happened. Upon hearing this, Seijo arose and walked out the door of their house. By this time Ochu was returning, and, upon seeing each other, the two Seijo’s ran towards each other. As they embraced, they merged into one. Seijo said “on the night Ochu left, I had a wonderful dream that I had followed him, but now I do not know where I really went.”

And in this story, the underlying dharma message is one of making hard choices, and figuring out who you really are. Seijo took the “easy” way out, and, faced with the seemingly impossible task of choosing between her filial obligations to Chokan and her deep love for Ochu - killing off one option by bringing life to the other - she simply chose not to decide, and instead tried to have it both ways - staying with her father in one form, and following Ochu in the other. Seijo fails to realize here that true strength and conviction comes from making hard choices - does she upset her father and refuse her societal and familial obligations, or does she lose her lover and best friend by marrying another man? Something's gotta give, as the old song says. Which Seijo is the REAL Seijo? Pick one! You can't have both!
Hence, when these two aspects of her “soul” finally reconciled after years of untenable separation, she confesses that all this time she wasn’t completely herself, her two halves separate and incomplete.

My symphonic poem “Seijo’s Two Souls (Prelude)” closely follows the events of this story in chronological order, and includes two distinct themes - one for Ochu and one for Seijo.
Ochu’s majestic and self-assured theme repeats multiple times throughout, and each time, the restatement is the same as before - indicative of his unwavering, self-assured conviction that Seijo is his only true love.
Seijo’s theme, by contrast, enters first in short snippets, and then is first heard in its entirety at the point in the story where she is despondent, wailing over the heartbreak of her arranged marriage and Ochu’s departure (and spoiler alert: her soul is leaving her physical body). Her theme then transforms through various iterations, each more tense and distant from the original than the one before. This is indicative of her indecisiveness, the unsustainable duality of trying to be two people at once. Finally, her theme appears for a final time at the end of the work, in its original form, whole again and sweetly at peace, as the two Seijo’s merge and become one again.

The chronology of the story lined up with the sections of the work is as follows:
0:00 Ochu and Seijo as children
1:32 Ochu and Seijo as young adults fall in love
2:09 Seijo promised to another man, Ochu leaves
2:27 Seijo’s sadness, her soul departs
3:22 Ochu runs down the river
4:33 Ochu and Seijo’s new life far from home
5:23 Ochu and Seijo return home
6:12 Two Seijo’s meet and become one