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Jonathan McPhee, artistic director of Longwood Symphony Orchestra, will conduct the New England premiere of “Styx.’’ (Tom Kates) |
Classical Notes
For Longwood Symphony, a journey to another realm
Conductor Jonathan McPhee heard “Styx,’’ a piece by the Georgian composer Giya Kancheli, in Denver in June 2008. Kancheli’s music was and remains little known in the United States; McPhee says that at the time he couldn’t recall having heard any of his music. Yet the impact on him of “Styx’’ - broadly scaled work for orchestra, chorus, and solo viola - was powerful and immediate.
“It was surprise after surprise after surprise,’’ says McPhee by phone during a break from rehearsals. “I wasn’t even out of the theater before I knew I had to do this.’’
That initial spark of enthusiasm reaches fruition tomorrow night, when the Longwood Symphony Orchestra, of which McPhee is artistic director, will give the New England premiere of “Styx.’’ Their partners in the endeavor are the New World Chorale and violist Roger Tapping of New England Conservatory. (Also on the program are Sibelius’s “Tapiola’’ and Howard Shore’s “Lord of the Rings.’’)
Composed in 1999, “Styx’’ takes its name from the mythical river that separates the realm of the living from that of the dead. Indeed, death itself is at the very core of the piece, which is why McPhee decided to perform it with the Longwood Symphony. The orchestra is made up of members of Boston’s medical community, people who see life-and-death struggles up close on a day-to-day basis.
“One of the things that I learned when I got close to them is that their training forces them not to become too emotionally involved,’’ says McPhee. “There’s a terrific amount of emotion that’s bottled up in them that they have to contain. And then I get them in the room and it’s like, OK - let it out. Let it go.
“I put together a whole concert that deals with similar themes,’’ he continues. “It’s a very dark program. And it’s them. I haven’t told them that. But at some point, they’re going to suddenly look and say, ‘Oh my God, this is us.’ ’’
“Styx’’ opens with huge, dissonant chords in the brass but quickly recedes into a lament that at times registers just louder than silence, with the chorus murmuring indistinctly beneath the orchestral texture. The alternation between dynamic extremes is a key component of Kancheli’s musical language, which is tonal and ranges in style from acerbic modernism to nostalgic snippets of folk song.
The choral text, which the composer assembled himself, is an almost Dadaist collection of words and phrases, a seemingly random walk through the composer’s memory. Bits of Georgian prayer are thrown in, as are the names of Kancheli’s friends and two deceased composers, Avet Terterian and Alfred Schnittke.
Kancheli is, in effect, positioning the listener on that voyage across the river. “All of these living or newly dead people, they’re saying prayers, they’re having conversations, and it’s all coming from every part of the globe to you,’’ McPhee explains. “And you’re hearing little bits of this and that while you’re on your journey in the middle of it.’’
Toward the end of the piece, the words suddenly come into sharp focus, fixating on time. “Merciful time! Time of terror! Time of joy!’’ the chorus shouts. In contrast to the hushed sounds that preceded it, the music for these words is that of a boisterous dance that wouldn’t have seemed out of place in Orff’s “Carmina Burana.’’
“All of the sudden,’’ says McPhee, “you almost become the souls of the people who’ve now crossed the river Styx and you’re arriving [at the other side]. It’s both exhilarating and horrible at the same time.’’
Through it all, the solo viola sings in a darkly lyrical vein. It takes on the part of Charon, the boatman who ferries dead souls from the Earth to Hades, the only meeting point between the two worlds.
“In a way, the viola has a role that binds together a lot of the fragmentary stuff, and has more of the melodic thread of the piece,’’ says Tapping of his instrument’s role in the piece. “It may be just a metaphor but there is a sense in which it connects the material and also connects the various memories. . . . You sort of follow its line from one thought to another.”
At Jordan Hall. 617-667-1527, www.longwoodsymphony.org
Emerson returns
The members of the Emerson String Quartet are recurrent and welcome visitors to Boston. Tonight’s Jordan Hall concert centers on works of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including the first quartets of both Ives and Janacek. Also on the program is the Adagio from Barber’s String Quartet, which became overly familiar in its orchestral version from movies like “Platoon.’’ One wishes they had programmed the entire quartet, the rest of which is as obscure as the Adagio is famous.Rounding out the evening is Shostakovich’s Ninth Quartet, of which the Emerson quartet gave a memorably powerhouse performance in 2003.
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