The Last Days of Immanuel Kant

This large-scale choral work for 24 voices sets passages from Thomas de Quincey’s essay, an extraordinary text whose authorship is ambiguous, but which has, for me, something of the austerity and absurdity of Samuel Beckett. I once planned to make this into an opera but, instead, it has become a narrative cantata, describing the great philosopher’s gradual descent into senility and his eventual passing. It shows his increasingly incongruous obsessions and odd behaviour, contrasting this with the greatness of his mind. It is the third work I have written for the virtuoso Philadelphia-based choir The Crossing, following The Fifth Century (2014) and A Native Hill (2018-19). Gavin Bryars