TWO PIECES FOR HILARY HAHN. Commissioned by
Hilary Hahn. 1. COMING TO for violin and
piano. Duration 3:20 minutes. 2. DYSTOPIA
for solo violin. Duration circa 4 minutes. Both pieces are under exclusivity
until December 2013. Available after that date from
PROMETHEAN EDITIONS.
Commissioned by violinist Hilary Hahn, Coming To for
violin and piano was composed in August 2010. Its brevity (under 5 minutes)
presented me with a challenge: how do develop a complete musical idea in a short
period of time. To overcome this challenge, I looked for ideas in the structure
of music videos—a story that can be told within given time constraints, but
which unfolds leisurely and belies its actual clock time. In Coming To,
the story goes something like this: a young man (a ballet dancer) lies mortally
ill in bed. In his hallucinatory state of mind, he sees or imagines a beautiful
female violinist playing next to his bed, the sound initially emerging from the
beeping monitors that he is hooked up to. As the music comes gradually into
focus, he rises from his bed and performs an initially slow dance with her,
which becomes increasingly more frantic and exhausting. At the climax of the
dance, and after a virtuosic pirouette, he collapses on the floor. This is an
exceptional composition for me: I do not usually dub in program music but . . .
there you have it!
Dystopia, a three and a half minute long "encore" piece for solo
violin, was commissioned by and dedicated to violin virtuoso Hilary Hahn. Hidden
behind the hyper-virtuosity and relative brevity of this piece is a meditation
on the causes of religious intransigence, disenchantment and, ultimately, jihad.
The literal meaning of the title (a "terrible place") refers to the current
conflict between narrowly defined religious creeds, particularly the conflict
between the Moslem world, and the so-called western civilization, or modernity.
These two separate worlds are musically depicted as (1) a rather "square" music
in the ancient Dorian mode (the Phrygian of the Gregorian modal system) with a
microtonally raised flat second degree (B-quarter flat) whose use is widespread
in several Islamic musical cultures of the Middle East, North-East Africa and
South Asia and (2) the musical universe of equal-temperament tuning used in
Western European music from the eighteenth century onwards which significantly
compromises modal identity but compensates for this loss by enabling harmonic
travel beyond the tonic key. Dystopia begins with the certitudes of the
traditional modal world played by the soloist with unshaken conviction. The
music then moves into what sounds to the listener like an improvised section
against a steady rhythmic bed of left-hand pizzicato. Gradually and
imperceptibly, the soloist is drawn into western classicism and modernity: the
microtonally raised second degree of the Dorian is incrementally lowered until
it reaches a normal B-flat and, consequently, equal temperament, while the
previously monophonic and/or heterophonic music gives way to harmonic substance
and motion. At first the experience is pleasurable and exhilarating but
gradually the soloist realizes that, seen from a certain distance, modernity is
a frighteningly accelerating ride to nowhere. At the peak of the acceleration we
are confronted with the possibility that modernity may have helped dispense with
false certitudes but it has not replaced them with anything of redeeming value,
while revealing all along an underlying nihilism at its core. At the moment of
this realization—and in a reactionary about face—the soloist re-focuses her/his
attention to the original mode and particularly on what sets it apart from
western modernity that is the peculiarly tuned second scale degree. In a
desperate attempt to hold on to something known and "concrete", the soloist
focuses increasingly on the difference rather than the commonality of the two
experiences. By increasingly focusing on and ending emphatically with the
microtonally altered second degree, which is in variance not only with modernity
but also with the spirit and deeper intention of the non-western mode itself
(and, by analogy, Islamic tenets), the soloist sets her/himself on a war path
with modernity and its postulates. A potential "jihadist" is born, waiting to be
recruited and utilized in a dark cause. ”
It is important for the soloist to interpret measures 91 to the end with a
certain degree of restrained theatricality. She/he should convey to the audience
the inner struggle suggested by the deliberate choice of the original intonation
and the insistence on the B-quarter flat at the very end. Timing, pacing and
dynamics should be employed to depict the inner turmoil and the darkness of the
final choice.
Premiere performance:
(Coming To) October 13, 7:30 PM. Hilary Hahn, violin; Valentina Lisitsa, piano.
Constella Festival; Cincinnati Arts Association; Memorial Hall;
1229 Elm St.
Cincinnati, OH, USA
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