Introduction
Ph.D. in Music Theory. Composer, Art Education Director, and Co-Founder of Sistema@Salty Cricket. Eschler's work sits at the intersection of rigorous formal structure and an expansive curiosity about the outer edges of human musical experience.
Is there a limit to how many simultaneous musical voices the human mind can comprehend? Eschler has spent his career exploring that boundary — not in the abstract, but in sound. Book of Chorale is the fullest answer he has composed so far.
Book of Chorale is a large-scale work for 5 pianos, running approximately one hour, organized in 3 parts plus coda. At its foundation are 10 original chorale melodies, used to generate 31 movements — solos, duets, trios, quartets, and quintets — arranged in a strict recurring order across all three parts. The work is not merely long. It is structurally ambitious in a way that rewards sustained attention. Complete canons, fugues, and other traditionally self-contained forms are layered transparently upon one another, stacking into something the composer describes as a new kind of structure entirely. The finale, Movement XXXII, brings all five pianos together in a summative quintuple-quintuple fugue — each piano generating its own individualized fughetta from two chorale melodies, all five combining into what Eschler likens to the layered cosmic imagery emerging from the James Webb Space Telescope.