Commissioned by the New Juilliard Ensemble and the Cleveland Chamber Symphony with funds provided by Dr. W. Howard Hoffman
Symphony No. 1: Sacred Monuments is a symphony in four parts (four portraits, the fourth also acting as a postludium). It is an homage to four great Ukrainian composers: Maxym Berezovsky (1745-1777), Artem Vedel (c. 1770-1808), Dmytro (Dmitri) Bortniansky (1751-1825), and Boris Lyatoshynsky (1895-1968). The lives of the first two ended tragically, while Bortniansky and Lyatoshynsky died famous and feted. The overall work reflects that arch, with the Postludium acting as a commentary on the three previous portraits, transforming some of the earlier themes into its fabric, as well as making references to living Ukrainian composers connected with Lyatoshynsky. The plan to compose such a work goes back to 1985, when the first version of "Duma," a soliloquy, was originally composed for full symphony orchestra. At that time, my involvement with Ukraine, its culture and, especially, its music, was in full swing. I wanted to compose a sort of a national symphony something along the line of Smetana's Ma Vlast: a personal journey through time and memory, but done by an expatriate, someone residing in America since 1949. The deep structure of the complete Symphony is constructed like a ziggurat, a kind of pyramidal edifice consisting of successive structures topped with a shrine. The style of the work is a continuation of what I developed in Dreamtime (a 19 movement work written for 7 instrumentalists): the idea of living in two worlds simultaneously. One of them may be described simply as Newtonian, in which the arrow of time exists. The other is dreamtime - in which we live in both wakeful and dream states. That psychic territory (not in contradiction to laws of time and gravity, but a troping of consciousness) is willful, uncontrollable, and with the constant factors hidden delightfully from view: a gradual effacement and dissolution of voluntarism. What I wanted to do was go formally into the depth of seductive aural beauty and its accompanying terrors. It as an opera without words, with leitmotivs, characters that reappear, and the final reconciliation. I have chosen this form because I decided that my music is primarily melodic, and melody, as stated in Schopenhauer's illuminating exegesis of music, "alone possesses a meaningful, purposeful coherence from beginning to end..."
The first portrait, "The Hour of the Wolf," is an homage to Maxym Berezovsky, who committed suicide on April 2, 1777 at the age of thirty-two.
"The hour of the wolf is the time between night and dawn...when nightmares are most palpable...when ghosts and demons hold sway."
The piece is a reflection on this moment of time, the few minutes (or hours) before Berezovsky ended his life. The "The Hour of the Wolf" begins with a series of downward and overlapping lines out of which a long contrapuntal melody gradually evolves pierced through with fragments of Berezovsky's Chorale Concerto No. 3, "Do Not Reject Me in My Old Age":
"Do not reject me in my old age, nor forsake me when my strength fails..." Psalm 71
This contemplation on suicide, at first slow and ponderous, increases in activity (a sort of musical hyperventilation) and becomes a frenzied dance, which in turn exhausts itself into a series of tropes, which are quotations from my two other recent pieces "Treny III" and "Persona", written at the time when "The Hour of the Wolf" was in the planning stage.
The "Duma, a soliloquy: Anno Domini 27. VII. 1808," (its full title) is an homage to the great choral composer Artem Vedel, a tragic figure who died at the age of 41 after spending 9 years in an asylum for the invalid and the insane, a victim of Czarist persecution. He was arrested for possibly, among other things, protesting serfdom. The "Duma" used fragments of his Choral Concerto No. 3 (written between 1795-98) which is the setting of Psalm 13. The following portion of the Psalm is the basis of "Duma."
How long, O Lord, wilt thou quite forget me? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? Protect and hear me, O Lord, hear me, Lighten my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death; Lest my enemy say, "I have prevailed over him;" Lest those that trouble me rejoice Because I am moved. Psalm 13
Near the end of "Duma" the brass intone a tuba mirum-like section (in the Dies Irae of the Latin Requiem Mass where the wondrous sound of the trumpet is invoked), expressing both rage and terror. This section makes use of the mournful sounds of the `trembita", well known in the Carpathian Mountains and used by the Hutzuls as messenger of death, as well as other information. Here one can hear a brief reference to Myroslav Skoryk's Concerto for Orchestra, "Carpathian", the first orchestral work that I know of which makes deliberate use of this sound. "Duma" is a reverie: an imaginary, dream-like interior dialogue that I carry on with the memory of the original work. 27. VII. 1808 is the estimated date of Artem Vedel's death.
"Agnus Dei" functions as the scherzo of the tetralogy. Bortniansky's life was essentially one of realized ambitions. By the time when he was appointed "Director of Vocal Music and Administrator of the Imperial Chapel" of the royal court in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1796, he was a musician at the height of his creative powers. Although he produced works in many genres (instrumental, symphonic and opera), he is best known for his choral concertos, a specifically Slavic hybrid of Baroque and Classical styles, of a multi-movement (usually three) work written for a cappella chorus. Hector Berlioz particularly admired Bortniansky's striking originality and skill in the laying out of choral parts. Bortniansky was born in Hlukhiv, Ukraine in 1751 where he studied from an early age in a music school specifically founded to train musicians for the Russian Empire's music institutions. Because of his precocious gifts he was sent to St. Petersburg at the age of seven, where he studied with, among others, Baldassare Galuppi, at that time director of the Imperial Chapel Choir. From 1769 to 1779 Bortniansky studied in Italy. His 11-year sojourn was spent principally in Venice, Bologna, Rome and Milan, during which he steeped himself in the music, painting and architecture of Italy. His first opera Creonte was performed in Venice in 1776, followed by Alcide two years later. In 1779 the premiere in Modena of his opera-seria, Quinto Fabio, was given a triumphant reception. He returned to St. Petersburg and assumed the duties of Kappelmeister of the Imperial Chapel Choir. He died on October 10, 1825. The excellence and artistry of the chapel choir under Bortniansky's direction is evidenced by the fact that in 1824, at the express wish of the composer himself, Ludwig van Beethoven's Missa Solemnis was premiered in St. Petersburg by the Imperial Chapel Choir. Bortniansky was an erudite and cultured man who spoke five languages: Ukrainian, Italian, French, German and Russian. His style is characterized by a Classical simplicity, Baroque contrapuntal ingenuity, harmonic clarity, a flair for the melodic (heavily influenced by Ukrainian and Russian folklore), and deep emotional resonance. His supreme achievement resides in his 35 concertos for chorus and 10 concertos for double chorus. They develop the tradition of partesnyi spiv (part-singing) into new and ultimate sophistication and emotional, as well structural, complexity. The form of "Agnus Dei" is integration of Bortniansky's Choral Concerto No. 15 within the more or less traditional scherzo form. The first part consists of alternating elements: an exuberant dance-like refrain with a joyful tune (Italianate in character, sunny in disposition, but Slavic in mood) interlaced with materials from the Choral Concerto No. 15, "Pryidite, vospoim liudiie" (Come, O people, let us praise), the Resurrection Stanza for "Hospody vozzvakh" [Lord, to you have I cried] of Vespers Service.
Come, O people, let us praise the third day rising of the Redeemer - by which we have been saved from the unbreakable bonds of hell...
It is this joyful and celebratory mood that "Agnus Dei" attempts to capture. The B section is an extended dance that draws on the Slavic character; Bortniansky relied heavily on Ukrainian as well as Russian folklore in his melodic conception. The B section is a dance: a whirling dervish with a folk-like melody being moved in circles. Just before the opening refrain returns, a final reference to Bortniansky is made - less explicit and considerably slowed down. The movement ends with a sudden return of a variation on the "hammer" motive heard near the end of "The Hour of the Wolf."
Postludium is the coda of the cycle. Here the various strands of the symphony are morphed into new melodic lines. Here melody reigns supreme. My inspiration was the Metamorphosen of Richard Strauss and Pierre Boulez's Rituel. The middle section is a metamorphoses of an another work of mine extracted as Postludium was being composed in a short score: "...a trois" for oboe, bassoon and piano. Over thirty years ago, in 1968, the Ukrainian composer, Boris Lyatoshynsky, died. Postludium is written in his memory. At the same time, it honors a number of his important students, especially Valentin Silvestrov andLeonid Hrabovsky. This movement is in three parts. The first acts as a kind of introduction, based on a three-chord progression heard in the first measures. Over it slowly rises a melody that unfolds with other, shorter, melodies in accompaniment. The heart of the movement is the second part, which begins with the entrance of a harpsichord solo, "pedaled" by strings. The melodic material is made up of melismas that I particularly love and whose stylistic and emotional content seem to have a share in certain traits of Lyatoshynsky: a nostalgia for unrealized events, imagined journeys and wishes, grounded in both tonal longings and sequences. The little motive that the harpsichord, doubled at times by the harp and/or piano, reiterates many times throughout this section, acts as a Proustian madeleine, triggering a chain of associations. This section, then, is in itself a fragment. It begins near the end of some imaginary piece, perhaps a trio sonata, most likely a very dramatic and turbulent one that has been going on for some time. We only catch a glimpse of it. What we hear is the last reflection on a work that no longer exists and is not capable of being completely deciphered. The third part is a primordial scream. It brings the reverie to a sudden halt, and joins many of the themes from the previous three movements into despairing juxtaposition.