Virtuoso Virginia Gene Rittenhouse may have degrees from some of the most prestigious music conservatories in the world and a personality capable of defying dignitaries or border guards when necessary, but on Tuesday, March 2, she was visibly nervous.

"I worry that the music will not do the words justice," she told us. Perhaps anyone would sweat at the prospect of composing music for words from the book of Revelation, which include: "She has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication." Particularly, if, as in this case, the piece was premiering at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

To be honest, we musicians were nervous, too. Like a difficult and well-loved book, our sheet music was blanketed with penciled notations. At the dress rehearsal, only hours before, dynamics were still being added, notes stripped, and harmonies rearranged.

While she worried about doing the words justice, we, as usual, panicked about living up to her expectations. She wanted us to be her Aaron, to find a way to speak this vision—no small task.

The verbal spectacle of Revelation as manifested in Rittenhouse’s oratorio, The Vision of the Apocalypse, is an equally challenging melodic montage of blistering brass fanfares, atonal woodwind gauze, and driving syncopated rhythms. The orchestration is epic. The contrabassoon, usually relegated to oom-pah obscurity, anchors a rare exhibit of orchestral possibility sprinkled with alto flute, harp, and E-flat clarinet. Four vocal soloists join two choirs, one on stage and one in the first balcony.

At 7:30, Conductor James Bingham lifted his baton, and Rittenhouse spoke: "I am Alpha and Omega—the Beginning and the End." The Three Angels’ message forms the core of fourteen movements, including "Babylon Is Fallen," "Here is the Patience," "No Night There," and "Resurrection." At the last note of the final Amen, the audience erupted into a standing ovation.

With the applause thundering in our ears, the first clarinetist leaned forward and said, "There are many kinds of fear. Some I like, and some I don’t. I liked that one." He spoke for many of us. We have been with Rittenhouse to Soweto during Apartheid, to Communist China, to AIDS orphanages, to church floors all over the world, and we know what it feels like to step out in sometimes uncomfortable uncertainty, only to discover that the music is never inadequate when it sings the gospel.

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