Composition

In today's world, whether for publicity or other reasons, there seems to be a compulsive obsession with the display of joy and positivity, regardless of the reality of circumstances. The Fabricator of Joy is a portrait of such a formidable social structure—one that systematically conditions its subjects into numbness, compelling them to truly believe that the images of joy they endlessly produce are joy itself. These subjects are trained to deny any suggestion of a flawed reality and to perform their mechanical duty of rejoicing.

The quintet is written in two movements. The first is essentially a motet for the four wind instruments, based entirely on a mournful theme first stated by the solitary bassoon. A brief episode of relatively tonal sequences offers the work its only glimpse of fleeting warmth before it plunges back into rigorous polyphony, eventually coerced by the piano into settling into a cadence. The second movement is the pièce de résistance of the work. Here, a theme of apparent joy is set against sounds that imitate machinery, following its initial unison statement. As the movement unfolds, it becomes increasingly clear that this joy is diluted by forces almost malign: the towering manufacturer of supposed happiness is shrouded in growing ominousness, and its products—laughter—become strained and acerbic. Towards the end, the subjects desperately pull out all the stops to convince themselves that their lives are indeed filled with 'Joy. Joy. Joy.'